| Why is there only one human trafficking charge in Florida massage parlor busts? Posted: 27 Feb 2019 06:22 AM PST  Lanyun Ma and Yongzhang Yan, a married Orlando couple, owned multiple Florida spas. Police said they both were sex traffickers.
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| House passes bill rejecting Trump's border wall emergency Posted: 26 Feb 2019 04:00 PM PST ![House passes bill rejecting Trump's border wall emergency]( "House passes bill rejecting Trump's border wall emergency") In a stinging rebuke to President Donald Trump, the House of Representatives on Tuesday brushed aside veto threats and passed legislation to terminate the emergency he declared at the U.S.-Mexico border in order to build a wall there. By a vote of 245-182, the House passed the resolution, setting up a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate where the resolution's chances were slimmer, but seemed to be improving. While passage was a victory for Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the tally was short of what she would likely need to override a possible veto by Republican Trump.
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| The 9 Best 2019 Cars for Less Than $20,000 Posted: 26 Feb 2019 07:51 AM PST |
| Porsche to make electric SUV: the Porsche Macan gets an overhaul Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:52 AM PST ![Porsche to make electric SUV: the Porsche Macan gets an overhaul]( "Porsche to make electric SUV: the Porsche Macan gets an overhaul") The Porsche Macan is getting an electric makeover. The Porsche SUV will be converted into a battery-powered model, the VW luxury brand announced.
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| Elon Musk could face contempt charge over latest controversial tweet Posted: 26 Feb 2019 01:02 AM PST  Tesla boss Elon Musk could be held in contempt if a tweet is found to have violated a settlement deal agreed last year. US stock market regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked a court in New York to hold the chief executive in contempt for violating a $40m (£30m) settlement he reached five months ago. Now the US financial regulator is alleging that Mr Musk broke the terms of that agreement with a tweet on 19 February which showed an aerial photo of thousands of new Tesla vehicles and said the company would make about 500,000 cars in 2019.
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| Church sex abuse scandal: Vatican opens investigation into Cardinal George Pell Posted: 27 Feb 2019 01:02 PM PST  Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican's third-most powerful official, was remanded to prison in Australia for sexually abusing two choirboys.
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| Michael Cohen's explosive allegations suggest danger for Trump on two fronts Posted: 27 Feb 2019 10:39 AM PST  Michael Cohen on Wednesday delivered a sharp warning to Donald Trump and the Republican party that the president faces legal and political peril on at least two fronts. Cohen became the first Trump associate to allege that, in 2016, Trump knew in advance that his eldest son, Donald Jr, was meeting Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton – and that WikiLeaks would be releasing emails stolen from Democrats by Russian operatives. Cohen was asked by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Florida Democrat forced to resign as party chairwoman over the WikiLeaks disclosures, how they could corroborate his explosive allegations, which are based on remarks he says he overheard in Trump's office.
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| Attacked and powerless, Venezuela soldiers choose desertion Posted: 26 Feb 2019 08:14 AM PST  CUCUTA, Colombia (AP) — The simple house on a street ridden with potholes in this town on Colombia's restive border with Venezuela has become a refuge for the newly homeless: 40 Venezuelan soldiers who abandoned their posts and ran for their lives.
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| Abortion survivor reacts to Senate failing to pass bill protecting babies born alive in failed abortions Posted: 26 Feb 2019 05:17 AM PST  Abortion survivor Melissa Ohden expresses disappointment after Democrats block the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a measure requiring doctors to provide medical care to babies born alive after attempted abortions.
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| Wells Fargo Sees ‘Possible’ Legal Losses Rising by $500 Million Posted: 27 Feb 2019 02:35 PM PST  The higher estimate for "reasonably possible" legal losses -- essentially a worst-case scenario -- shows risks grew as the bank and authorities examined abuses in recent months and discussed potential penalties. The change stems from "a variety of matters," including probes of its sales to retail customers, Wells Fargo wrote Wednesday in an annual regulatory report.
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| Boeing unveils unmanned combat jet developed in Australia Posted: 26 Feb 2019 05:10 PM PST  Boeing Co on Wednesday unveiled an unmanned, fighter-like jet developed in Australia and designed to fly alongside crewed aircraft in combat for a fraction of the cost. The U.S. manufacturer hopes to sell the multi-role aircraft, which is 38 feet long (11.6 meters) and has a 2,000 nautical mile (3,704 kilometer) range, to customers around the world, modifying it as requested. The prototype is Australia's first domestically developed combat aircraft since World War II and Boeing's biggest investment in unmanned systems outside the United States, although the company declined to specify the dollar amount.
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| Commercial flights to and from Pakistan, India disrupted as tensions rise Posted: 27 Feb 2019 06:44 AM PST  Several airlines, including Emirates and Qatar Airways, suspended flights to Pakistan on Wednesday after the South Asian nation closed its air space following heightened tensions with neighbouring India. Etihad, flydubai, Gulf Air, SriLankan Airlines and Air Canada also suspended services to the country and flight tracking portals showed Singapore Airlines, British Airways and others were forced to reroute flights. Airlines flying over India and Pakistan to Europe, the Middle East and Asia were disrupted and some flights were routed through Mumbai on India's western coast, so they could head further south and avoid Pakistan air space, an Indian government official told Reuters.
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| Timeline: R. Kelly's history of sex-abuse arrests, indictments and lawsuits over the years Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:26 AM PST  In the more than 10 years between his two arrests, Kelly has been accused by an army of women of physical and sexual abuse.
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| AP Explains: What everyone wants at the Trump-Kim summit Posted: 26 Feb 2019 06:04 PM PST  HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will likely be all smiles as they shake hands in Hanoi at a meeting meant to put flesh on what many critics call their frustratingly vague first summit in Singapore. But behind the grins is a swirl of competing goals and fears.
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| US Denied Tens of Thousands More Visas in 2018 Because of Travel Ban Posted: 26 Feb 2019 03:26 PM PST  Tens of thousands more visas were denied in 2018 than previously because of President Trump's travel ban on certain countries, according to data released Tuesday.According to Reuters, the State Department said it rejected over 37,000 visa applications last year because of the travel ban restrictions, many times more than the 1,000 blocked in 2017, before the ban kicked in completely.The ban mostly affects the Muslim-majority countries Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Visas issued to those countries are down 80 percent since 2016. About 14,600 visas were granted to applicants from those five countries from October, 2017 to September, 2018, down from the 72,000 approved the year before.The ban also restricted visas for those from Venezuela and North Korea.Last year, the government rejected 15,384 applications for immigrant (permanent resident) visas because of the ban, as well as 21,645 short-term visit applications.After Trump announced the ban in January, 2017, citing terrorism concerns from the countries listed in the order, it faced challenges in several federal courts over whether the ban was illegally discriminatory against Muslims. The administration tweaked the order, and the Supreme Court approved the implementation of most of it in December, 2017. The Court upheld the current version of the ban last summer.The U.S. denies close to 4 million visa applications every year for a laundry list of reasons, including criminal activity and not qualifying for the particular visa sought.
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| Steven Avery attorney: 'We won!'; court to hear new evidence in 'Making a Murderer' case Posted: 27 Feb 2019 11:34 AM PST  Kathleen Zellner, attorney for "Making A Murderer" subject Steven Avery, tweeted "We won!" after the Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision.
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| Univision Journalist Jorge Ramos Freed After Being Held by Maduro Posted: 25 Feb 2019 07:08 PM PST  Univision said that Maduro disliked Ramos' questioning in an interview and ordered footage, equipment and telephones confiscated and the journalists held. "He didn't like the questions we were asking about the lack of democracy in Venezuela, about the torture of political prisoners, about the humanitarian crisis they're going through," Ramos said in an interview posted by Univision.
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| US financial regulatory agency says Musk violated deal Posted: 25 Feb 2019 10:06 PM PST  The US Securities and Exchange Commission accused Tesla founder Elon Musk on Monday of failing to comply with a court-endorsed deal between the electric automaker and the regulatory agency. According to the SEC, a tweet from Musk on Tesla's 2019 production levels violates the deal, under which his tweets had to be reviewed prior to being published. On "February 19, 2019, Musk tweeted, 'Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019.' Musk did not seek or receive pre-approval prior to publishing this tweet, which was inaccurate and disseminated to over 24 million people," the SEC said in court filing in New York federal court.
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| Photos of the 2021 Mercedes-AMG GLE53 Posted: 27 Feb 2019 09:10 AM PST |
| All-New 2020 Toyota Corolla First-Drive Review Posted: 26 Feb 2019 04:00 AM PST  All-New 2020 Toyota Corolla Adds Sizzle, Still Sensible The redesigned 2020 Toyota Corolla sedan joins the Corolla hatchback (which we've already tested), and it is offered for the first time as...
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| U.S. disrupted Russian trolls on day of November election: report Posted: 26 Feb 2019 12:35 PM PST  The U.S. military disrupted the internet access of a Russian troll farm accused of trying to influence American voters on Nov. 6, 2018, the day of the congressional elections, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The U.S. Cyber Command strike targeted the Internet Research Agency in the Russian port city of St. Petersburg, the Post reported, citing unidentified U.S. officials. The group is a Kremlin-backed outfit whose employees had posed as Americans and spread disinformation online in an attempt to also influence the 2016 election, according to U.S. officials.
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| Hollywood Madam: Want to stop human trafficking? Legalize consensual sex for money. Posted: 27 Feb 2019 11:14 AM PST  Why would a wealthy and powerful man like Robert Kraft allegedly pay for sex from women at a Florida strip-mall massage parlor? Don't overthink it.
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| Justice Department loses appeal to block AT&T-Time Warner merger, won't appeal again Posted: 26 Feb 2019 05:02 PM PST ![Justice Department loses appeal to block AT&T-Time Warner merger, won't appeal again]( "Justice Department loses appeal to block AT&T-Time Warner merger, won't appeal again") The Justice Department, which lost its latest attempt to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger, will not appeal the U.S. District Court of Appeals ruling.
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| Why Did Senate Democrats Refuse to Protect Infants? Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST  A moral catastrophe unfolded on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Monday. Forty-four Democratic senators voted against legislation that would have required doctors to give the same care to infants who survive abortion procedures that they would give to any other infant.One after another, Democratic senators took to the floor to smear the bill as an attack on women's health care, a baseless criticism that they failed to substantiate. In the process, they revealed their belief that allowing unwanted infants to perish after birth constitutes a form of women's health care.Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) reintroduced his Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act in direct response to Virginia governor Ralph Northam's endorsement of permitting mothers and doctors to let infants die of neglect. "The infant would be delivered," Northam said, explaining a hypothetical case in which a woman in labor wanted an abortion. "The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."This "discussion" is what Democrats voted on Monday to preserve — a discussion not about health-care options for women but about whether or not to extend health care of any kind to newborn infants. With their votes and their speeches, 44 U.S. senators embraced Ralph Northam's position, which, despite attempting to clarify, he has never retracted."I want to ask each and every one of my colleagues whether or not we're okay with infanticide," Sasse said at the start of floor debate on Monday. "This language is blunt. I recognize that. It is too blunt for many people in this body. But frankly, that is what we're talking about here today. Infanticide is what [the bill] is actually about."Though Sasse's bill failed to pass, it succeeded in forcing Democrats to take a stance on infanticide, and though they refused to do so explicitly, the reality of their disgraceful position was abundantly clear.During floor debate, Senator Tina Smith (D., Minn.) said that the bill "puts Congress in the middle of the important medical decisions that patients and doctors should make together without political interference."Democratic senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii said it represents the idea that "the moral judgment of right-wing politicians in Washington, D.C., should supersede a medical professional's judgment and a woman's decision.""It makes no sense for Washington politicians who know nothing about these individual circumstances to say they know better than the doctors, patients, the family," said Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.). "The bill is solely meant to intimidate doctors and restrict patients' access to care and has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with protecting children.""This is how our medical system is supposed to work," Smith added later in her remarks. "Physicians and patients making decisions together based on patients' individual needs."Democratic senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois labeled the bill an effort to "bully doctors out of giving reproductive care." And Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) said the legislation "would interfere with the doctor–patient relationship and impose new obstacles to a woman's constitutionally protected right to make her own decisions about her reproductive health.""Conservative politicians should not be telling doctors how they should care for their patients," Hirono said. "Instead, women, in consultation with their families and doctors, are in the best position to determine their best course of care."All of these statements take as their premise a fundamental lie about the legislation. No part of the born-alive bill limits abortion access or regulates abortion methods in any way. It involves abortions only to the extent that the infants in question survived them. Nor does the bill mandate any particular kind of care for these infants; it merely requires that these nearly aborted newborns be afforded "the same degree" of care that "any other child born alive at the same gestational age" would receive.But these statements from Democrats are more than mere falsehoods. They expose a sinister reality: There is no daylight between their argument and that of Ralph Northam. They have admitted that they believe that denying medical care to infants can constitute legitimate women's health care, classified under the untouchable umbrella of "reproductive rights."That was the ultimate triumph of the attempt to pass the born-alive bill. Though Democrats managed to block the legislation, it forced the moral equivocators of the Democratic party to step out from behind their smokescreens. It demanded that they put their name to a vote permitting doctors to turn a blind eye to dying babies. It compelled them to defend Ralph Northam's indefensible comments.This — and not because it would impede women's "reproductive rights" — is why Democrats were so afraid of Ben Sasse's bill. They knew that nothing in the text restricts access to abortion. But they knew, too, that it would expose them.To support the bill would betray a logical and philosophical inconsistency — Democrats would affirm the dignity and rights of a newborn infant, even as they dehumanize that same life, at the same stage of development, inside its mother's womb. To oppose the bill would reveal the ghastly, consistent principle of the abortion-rights movement — that a child's rights depend not on her size or location, but on whether she is wanted by her mother.The Democrats chose consistency, and consistency means infanticide.
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| 9 Awful Dividend Stocks to Sell Now Posted: 27 Feb 2019 09:59 AM PST ![9 Awful Dividend Stocks to Sell Now]( "9 Awful Dividend Stocks to Sell Now") In an unpredictable market, dividends can be one of the few reliable sources of investor returns. General Electric Co. (ticker: GE) investors know all-too-well how quickly a huge dividend yield can be cut to just 1 cent per quarter if a company is in dire financial straits. In addition, plenty of dividend stocks reached such high yields because the stock's share price has dropped so much.
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| May gives lawmakers chance to delay Brexit Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:30 AM PST  Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday offered lawmakers the chance to vote in two weeks for a potentially disorderly no-deal Brexit or to delay Britain's exit from the European Union if her attempt to ratify a divorce agreement fails. Edward Baran reports.
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| The New Peugeot 208 Hatchback Exploits Our Love for French Forbidden Fruit Posted: 26 Feb 2019 06:24 AM PST  Peugeot's latest subcompact has a sci-fi design and a new all-electric variant, and we wish it was coming here.
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| Nigeria's Buhari wins second term as president: electoral commission results Posted: 26 Feb 2019 02:54 PM PST  Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday won a second term at the helm of Africa's largest economy and top oil producer, a tally by Reuters based on electoral commission results showed. Buhari had a commanding lead of 56 percent compared to 40 percent for Atiku, before the final district was announced. A message posted on Buhari's Twitter feed late on Tuesday showed him smiling and surrounded by applauding staff at his campaign office.
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| Mother and adult daughter charged with killing 5 relatives Posted: 26 Feb 2019 01:13 PM PST  MORRISVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A mother and her adult daughter killed five of their close relatives, including three children, and were found "disoriented" after child welfare authorities arrived for a surprise visit to their trashed apartment outside Philadelphia, police and prosecutors said Tuesday.
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| Was the media biased against the Covington students? Posted: 27 Feb 2019 05:12 AM PST  Conservatives accuse media organizations of trafficking in stereotypes that Trump supporters are bigots. Two recent incidents have strengthened conservatives' belief that liberal journalists are implacably opposed to Donald Trump and his supporters: the 18 January encounter between a group of Kentucky students and a Native American activist on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and the claims by Jussie Smollett that he had been attacked by hoodlums shouting racist and anti-gay slurs.
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| Miami-Dade cop caught on tape slapping suspect Posted: 27 Feb 2019 07:11 AM PST  Two Miami-Dade Police officers are facing charges after surveillance video appeared to show one sergeant slapping a teenager who was handcuffed and another trying to destroy evidence.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Polestar 2 EV Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:58 AM PST |
| Pakistan claims it shot down 2 Indian warplanes in disputed Kashmir province Posted: 27 Feb 2019 11:16 AM PST  Pakistan claims it shot down two Indian warplanes, capturing a pilot, in the nuclear-armed rivals' disputed province of Kashmir.
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| ECB’s Rimsevics Is Back at Work and Headed to Frankfurt Posted: 27 Feb 2019 08:42 AM PST  "I will not restrict him, I will let him travel" to Frankfurt, Viorika Jirgena, the prosecutor in charge of his case, said in an interview. The central banker's case hasn't been sent to Latvian court yet, since he is still submitting evidence in the pre-trial stage. The Latvian central bank board won't grant Rimsevics access to documents involving the case or information about commercial banks that are connected to it, with all legal inquires going through his deputy Zoja Razmusa, spokesman Janis Silakalns said in an email.
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| Pioneer Woman slow cookers on sale at Walmart — get two for less than $20 Posted: 27 Feb 2019 08:57 AM PST  No potluck is complete without dips. Almost everyone can get behind a good buffalo chicken dip or queso, and small slow cookers are arguably the best vehicle for these types of side dishes.Transport your dips in style with a set of two Pioneer Woman 1.5-quart slow cookers by Hamilton Beach, on sale for $19.99 at Walmart. Image: the pioneer woman Image: the pioneer womanThese 1.5-quart cookers are ideal for dips, sides, desserts, appetizers, fondue, and small servings. No need to lug around a large slow cooker when a smaller one will do the trick. Plus, these Pioneer Woman models have super cute floral designs. Three different heat settings allow you to cook food and maintain temperature before serving. The removable stoneware crock and glass lid are both dishwasher safe, so cleanup is easy.Get this set of two 1.5-quart Pioneer Woman slow cookers from Hamilton Beach for $19.99 at Walmart -- quite the steal. Image: The pioneer woman The Pioneer Woman set of two 1.5-quart slow cookers -- $19.99 at Walmart See Details
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| Lawsuit accuses Trump of kissing campaign worker without her consent Posted: 25 Feb 2019 07:12 PM PST  Alva Johnson said in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Florida's Middle District, that the alleged incident was "part of a pattern of predatory and harassing behavior towards women" by Trump. "This accusation is absurd on its face," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement. "This never happened and is directly contradicted by multiple highly credible eye witness accounts." Trump has denied charges by a number of women who said he groped and kissed them over a period of years without permission.
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| La Tragicommedia è Finita Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST  Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a play in which two men sit around and wait for someone who never shows up, has been claimed by just about everyone: Freudians, Christians, existentialists.Who's right? I haven't a clue.But I have lived, all of us have lived, through a similar tragicomedy (a word Beckett added to the subtitle for the English version of his play). We've been waiting for Mueller. And waiting.For some, the waiting is the hardest part. But by historic standards, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been working at a blistering pace. Kenneth Starr's investigation into the Whitewater scandal wasn't fully closed down until 2001. It started in 1994. The average running time for special investigations is 904 days. Tuesday marked the 650th day since Mueller was appointed.Most independent counsels take a year to file their first criminal charges, if they file any at all. Mueller hit that milestone a little more than five months in, and he has racked up more than 30 other indictments or guilty pleas since then.And yet, for the "get Trump media" (as Alan Dershowitz and others call it), it's never enough. Whenever news breaks in the probe, or when news doesn't break, for that matter, the response tends to be the same: "Remember, we don't know what Mueller knows." Watch CNN or MSNBC for a few minutes and someone will say this — gleefully when the news is already bad for Trump, reassuringly when the news is disappointingly good for Trump."Always keeping in mind that Mueller knows so much more than he has shown," former CBS newsman Dan Rather told CNN's Don Lemon. "If you think [Michael Cohen's guilty plea and Paul Manafort's conviction] was a shock to our democratic system, just stay tuned. Because the other things Mueller is working on, and sooner or later we'll find out what they are, is going to make yesterday pale by comparison."Well, what if it doesn't? One of the reasons we keep hearing that "Mueller knows more" is that he has delivered less. For all of the drama and the embarrassments, Mueller has yet to file a single charge on the core allegation that justified the launch of the probe in the first place — the allegation that Donald Trump "colluded" with Russia.Sure, the gaudy remoras that attached themselves to Trump's hide have had a rough time of it. Manafort, who made a career of colluding with horrible regimes, may never have another meal not thwacked from a large spoon onto a prison tray. Roger Stone may join Cohen in the Stoney Lonesome as well. And obviously, Trump has made things worse for himself by seeming like he's got a lot to hide.But it looks more and more likely that Mueller's dance of a thousand veils will end with . . . more veils. The Mueller obsessives want him to be a deus ex machina who delivers irrefutable grounds for impeachment and I-told-you-sos. But that Mueller may never arrive. He may never even say a word about it in public at all.That's in part because the Russia piece of his portfolio is under the rubric of a counterintelligence investigation, not a criminal one. This means he's under no obligation to file any public report at all. He could submit a report to the newly confirmed attorney general, Bill Barr, but Barr can reveal whatever he wants to the public, assuming the president says it's OK. Or he can reveal nothing at all.But waiting for Mueller to prove himself a savior may not pan out, for the simpler reason that he can't find what doesn't exist. To say that Trump was morally capable of colluding with Russia is not the same thing as saying that he did.If you listen very closely to former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, there was never hard evidence of Trump's colluding beyond the president's weird statements and behavior in response to the Russia probe. The problem is that you don't need an international conspiracy to explain why Trump says and does weird things — unless you've already decided he's guilty.That's why this tragicomedy will not come to an end with the end of the Mueller probe. The audience, on both sides, had already decided what it was about when they entered the theater.Copyright © 2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
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| Can CBD Help Your Child? Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:33 AM PST  When a child is sick and conventional medicine isn't helping, parents understandably often turn to alternative treatments. Recently, that includes cannabidiol, aka CBD, which is a cannabis compou...
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| The 2020 Jaguar XE Ditches the V-6, Gains Sharper Styling and More Touchscreens Posted: 26 Feb 2019 03:45 PM PST  The lineup has been simplified, but the XE receives a number of improvements for 2020.
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| Tensions escalate as Indian airstrike hits inside Pakistan Posted: 26 Feb 2019 08:12 PM PST  BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) — Tensions escalated sharply on the Asian subcontinent Tuesday with nuclear-armed neighbors Pakistan and India trading accusations and warnings after a pre-dawn airstrike by India that New Delhi said targeted a terrorist training camp.
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