| Families of Soldiers Fallen or Wounded in Afghanistan Sue Contractors for Allegedly Paying Protection Money to Taliban Posted: 27 Dec 2019 11:49 AM PST  Families of 143 American troops and contractors killed or wounded in Afghanistan have sued U.S. and international contractors involved in Afghan reconstruction projects for allegedly paying protection money to the Taliban.The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court, claims certain contracting companies often paid the Taliban through subcontractors, which allowed the the companies to save money on security personnel. The Taliban then used the money, according to the lawsuit, to fund attacks on other companies that didn't make payments to the insurgent group."The defendants are large corporations that had lucrative businesses in Afghanistan," said Joshua Branson, a lawyer for the case, in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. "Those protection payments, as alleged, redirected attacks away from the defendants' own interests while financing a terrorist insurgency that killed and injured thousands of Americans, including our clients."It has been widely known for years that money from American defense contractors has found its way to local Afghan warlords in the wake of the U.S. invasion of the country. A 2010 congressional investigation found that funds from Pentagon-backed contractors were fueling a "protection racket" by bribing local officials and possibly Taliban members in exchange for safe passage of goods.No U.S. or international companies have been successfully prosecuted for aiding the Taliban. The current lawsuit is a civil suit, which will enable a conviction if prosecutors can convince a jury of a preponderance of evidence in their favor, as opposed to a criminal suit which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt.The war in Afghanistan, now 18 years old, came under increased scrutiny after the Washington Post published a trove of documents it dubbed the "Afganistan Papers." The records are from a federal investigation into the war effort and contain reflections of U.S. officials and troops in which they express doubts about the success of the war and the clarity of the military's mission. The officials also indicated the U.S. repeatedly misrepresented progress in the war to the government and the American people.The U.S. has been attempting peace negotiations with the Taliban, but talks have proceeded slowly as insurgents have continued to attack American targets.
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| Should emotional support animals be allowed on planes? Posted: 26 Dec 2019 09:57 AM PST  Emotional support animals are provide comfort to anxious travelers, but can also cause serious disruptions to flights. Is it time for these animals to be banned form planes?
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| Pete Buttigieg's Christmas tweet inadvertently sparked a war over whether Jesus was a poor refugee Posted: 27 Dec 2019 05:42 AM PST  Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and top-tier 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, tweeted a Christmas message: "Today I join millions around the world in celebrating the arrival of divinity on earth, who came into this world not in riches but in poverty, not as a citizen but as a refugee. No matter where or how we celebrate, merry Christmas." In 2019, those are apparently fighting words.Some conservative Christians protested that Joseph, the terrestrial father of Jesus of Nazareth, wasn't poor — though it's hard to see how a carpenter from an otherwise insignificant village in Galilee would be well-off — or faulted Buttigieg for not saying "Jesus" in his tweet. "But it was perhaps Buttigieg's classification of Jesus as a refugee — a common line among the Christian left — that received almost immediate pushback from evangelicals," says The Washington Post's Eugene Scott.The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh tied the criticisms together in one tweet, and he got some pushback from Jack Jenkins, a religion reporter with a master's degree in divinity from Harvard.> Hi! Religion reporter here. > > Christians who argue Jesus was a refugee are typically referring to what happened AFTER Jesus was born, when Mary, Joseph, and the newborn child fled to Egypt. > > This exegesis is easily Google-able. Or you could just, you know, read it in the Bible. https://t.co/DBL1by2maW> > — Jack Jenkins (@jackmjenkins) December 26, 2019Walsh, who is Catholic, argued back that Jesus wasn't a refugee because Galilee and Egypt were both part of the Roman Empire. Fr. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who's nobody's idea of a theological conservative, explained in 2017 why Jesus and his family were clearly refugees, at least according to the Gospel of Matthew. And fellow Jesuit priest Jeremy Zipple noted that Pope Benedict XVI — nobody's idea of a liberal — disagrees with Walsh, as did Pope Pius XII.> What an absurd position to take. Here's Pope Benedict XVI quoting Pope Pius XII on this question. https://t.co/V7WXrIPUJr https://t.co/7Ee8CziytK pic.twitter.com/XTUlm0lXda> > — Jeremy Zipple (@jzipple) December 26, 2019Jesus' citizenship status "has real implications for how Christians on both sides of the aisle conduct policy" and view President Trump's hardline, restrictive immigration and refugee policies, Scott reports. And Buttigieg dropped his Christmas tweet into a tender moment for evangelicals being internally challenged to square their faith with their fealty to an unrepentantly flawed president. Read The Week's Bonnie Kristian on how evangelicals might fix this moral dissonance.More stories from theweek.com A more honest evangelical defense of Trump 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's holiday season Democratic leadership should be afraid of McKayla Wilkes
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| Witnesses, police coping with Christmas deaths of woman and 2 kids Posted: 26 Dec 2019 06:17 PM PST  They were found unconscious on the sidewalk in front of a multi-level Boston garage and died at a hospital. Their deaths are under investigation.
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| A New Jersey mom bought a 'creepy' mermaid baby doll from Etsy for her 6-year-old daughter. It was filled with cocaine. Posted: 27 Dec 2019 03:43 PM PST  Elizabeth Faidley shipped the doll off to a doll hospital for some "cosmetic work." Weeks later, she got a call from the police department.
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| Mexico reveals webs of corruption in contracts, trafficking Posted: 27 Dec 2019 09:31 AM PST ![Mexico reveals webs of corruption in contracts, trafficking]( "Mexico reveals webs of corruption in contracts, trafficking") Mexico's top financial investigator on Friday reported on the webs of corruption and money laundering that thieves, traffickers and political figures have used to hide their wealth. Santiago Nieto, the head of Mexico's Financial Intelligence Unit, said a federal judge took bribes to rule in favor of the violent Jalisco cartel, and then used a lawyer's office to buy vehicles and send as much as $2 million to the United States. Another gang stole fuel from government pipelines and set up trucking companies to use the diesel and launder profits from sales of fuel to third parties.
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| Living the High Life on the Autoworkers' Dime Posted: 26 Dec 2019 05:35 AM PST  On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Auto Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union's money at a cigar store in Arizona. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each. "Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year," read a handwritten note from the store.The purchases, documented by a federal complaint filed against a union leader in September, were part of more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia that Jones and other UAW officials expensed to the union between 2014 and 2018. And the cigar purchases were in turn just a small portion of the roughly $1 million in union money that court filings say UAW officials spent on golf outings, four-figure dinners and monthslong villa rentals during regular retreats in Palm Springs, California, and elsewhere.The scandal comes on top of an investigation into company and union officials' improper use of millions of dollars from a joint Fiat Chrysler-UAW training center. Jones' predecessor as president, Dennis Williams, is accused of encouraging the use of Fiat Chrysler funds meant for worker education as a way to pay for the extravagant spending in Palm Springs and other places.In direct financial terms, the scandals don't approach the scale of the corruption that plagued organized labor in the 1960s and '70s.But the stakes are nonetheless enormous, given the UAW's outsize influence over auto manufacturing, a pillar of the U.S. economy that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue and employs hundreds of thousands of workers. The union's 40-day strike against General Motors this year cost the automaker an estimated $3 billion in profit. Last month, GM contended in a lawsuit that Fiat Chrysler had bribed the UAW to help it undermine GM by manipulating labor costs.And no one in the union had more influence over the industry than its two flawed former presidents.Williams, 66, who was president from 2014 to 2018, is a former welder and by most accounts a committed progressive but also a man susceptible to the perquisites of power. According to court documents, Williams and his team celebrated a Fiat Chrysler labor agreement they negotiated in 2015 with a $7,000 dinner paid for by the company. The agreement was so disliked by rank-and-file members that they soon took the highly unusual step of rejecting it.Jones, 62, a union accountant known both for asking colleagues to pray and for lashing them with profanity, is said to have used the illicit Palm Springs spending to win over union power brokers and help him secure the top job in 2018. As president, Jones led the UAW into its recent GM strike just weeks after federal agents raided his house and hauled away more than $30,000 in cash.Of the more than 15 current or former UAW officials interviewed for this article, most declined to comment on the record, citing an ethos of silence at the union or a fear of retribution. But together with government documents, the picture they paint of Jones and Williams suggests a leadership that has at times aspired more to the role of fat cat than defender of workers. The consequences for the rank and file may take decades to tally fully."There was a culture of corrupt activities spanning years. That's what we're trying to turn around," said Matthew Schneider, the U.S. attorney in Detroit, who is leading the investigation into the UAW. "The purpose of the union is not to serve the leadership. It is to serve the members."Jones and Williams have not been charged and appear in court filings only as "Official A" and "Official B," pseudonyms that two union officials told The Times refer to them, a fact that other news organizations have also confirmed. In an email, Bruce Maffeo, a lawyer representing Jones, dismissed the accusations as stemming "from public documents in which Gary was not charged."A person close to Williams rejected the accusation, first reported in The Detroit News, that he urged the diversion and misuse of training center funds.The 'Master Account'At the heart of the UAW embezzlement scandal, which dates back at least to 2013, was an elaborate hospitality tab known as the "master account." Union officials opened such accounts at hotels like the Renaissance Palm Springs, the site of an annual series of conferences. According to the federal complaint, union officials billed to this account not just rooms and food that they bought at the hotel but also a variety of other expenses weeks before and after the conferences.Union officials did conduct work at the meetings, including discussing contract enforcement and upcoming negotiations. But the gatherings also appeared to be a pretext for power brokers to enjoy a comfortable winter getaway.Among the expenses charged to the master account were the villas, which were tucked away in a gated community and cost about $5,000 a month, and dinners that ran into thousands of dollars. The bill for one meal at LG's Prime Steakhouse topped $6,500 and featured a $1,760 charge for four bottles of Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne.Union officials also spent more than $80,000 at the Indian Canyons Golf Resort in Palm Springs for green fees, shoes, golf bags, sunglasses, shirts and "fashion shorts," according to the complaint. They shipped many of these items home to Michigan on a semitruck.Williams, who was the UAW president for much of this period, was often the gravitational center of the Palm Springs sabbaticals. According to the federal complaint, the union paid for a monthlong stay for Williams at a villa in the winter of 2013-14. Two years later, the union paid for more than three months.In interviews, union officials said Williams would spend his days in Palm Springs conferring with aides and colleagues on the phone and in person, sometimes while playing golf. Nights were frequently given to socializing.Two former UAW officials recalled a night in which a few dozen people, including the wives of male officials, gathered at Williams' villa for pizza. The men gathered around a fire on the back patio where they smoked cigars, drank whiskey and discussed car restoration projects.The federal complaint said that friends of Williams who had "no legitimate reason to attend" union events joined him in Palm Springs on the UAW's dime.The arrangement helped create an in crowd and an out crowd at the union. Officials who were uneasy with the cigar-and-whiskey atmosphere in Palm Springs were left out and had more limited interactions with Williams. Three former officials said in interviews that they rarely saw him in Detroit during the winter.Other UAW officials, including those tasked with negotiating the union's contract with Fiat Chrysler, spent far more time in Palm Springs over the winter. These officials charged more than $25,000 in Palm Springs meals to the company in January 2015 alone, according to court documents.A person close to Williams said that Williams was frequently traveling away from Palm Springs on union business during the dates in which the villas were rented on his behalf. The person also said that no one enjoyed special influence over Williams as a result of additional face time with him.An Expansive FiefAccording to documents filed by prosecutors, the orchestrator of the master account was Jones, the UAW president who resigned in November.Jones spent more than a decade as an accountant and senior aide at the union's headquarters before 2004, when he became assistant director of the union's Region 5, then one of 11 geographic units.The UAW's regions are often run like fiefs, but Region 5, which was based in Missouri but sprawled all the way to the West Coast, was more fieflike than most.According to two Region 5 officials, the region's longtime director, Jim Wells, had a knack for extracting cash from members and staff, and there were few constraints on how he spent it. They said that under Wells, staff members were expected to buy a Region 5 jacket every four years at a cost of $1,000, ostensibly to support Wells' campaign for reelection as director.Elizabeth Bunn, who served as the UAW's second-ranking officer from 2002 to 2010, said that under Wells, Palm Springs was known as a place where officials could enjoy themselves at union expense for well beyond the length of a conference, although the behavior may have been legal. Bunn also recalled facing internal pressure while investigating wrongdoing in the region."A lot of people saw things and did not react with the moral clarity that they exercised in every other situation," she said.Wells died in 2012. A UAW press officer declined to comment on those complaints.Jones did not appear to blanch at this culture of financial laxness. At least as early as 2010, according to court filings, Jones and a colleague began submitting receipts that had already been reimbursed, or that they had manufactured, to a fund that supports the union's political efforts. The two men would split the reimbursement. Jones personally received hundreds of thousands of dollars from this scheme from 2010 to 2017, according to prosecutors.After Jones became regional director in 2012, he took an active role in directing the Palm Springs spending, prosecutors have asserted. UAW officials who wanted to play golf or buy golf apparel were told to charge the purchase to the Gary Jones "group," and the bill would flow to the master account at the Renaissance Hotel. The hotel declined to comment.A crucial purpose of the spending by Jones was to "curry favor with UAW 'Official B,' who also enjoyed the lavish lifestyle," according to the federal complaint, referring to Williams.In interviews, three union officials said it was clear that Jones was courting Williams in order to succeed him as president. One Region 5 official noted that Jones, who was not previously a regular cigar smoker, turned himself into a cigar aficionado in the mold of Williams after becoming regional director. The official said Jones acquired a few humidors for the regional headquarters in Hazelwood, Missouri.Colleagues said that despite their expensive tastes, Jones and Williams were a study in contrasts. Williams told fellow officials in the 2000s that he was a socialist. As union president, he hired consultants to bolster the union's organizing efforts in areas like higher education and technology, including those at the electric carmaker Tesla.Jones, by contrast, appeared to be more conservative and less interested in new organizing opportunities. He blocked a promising effort to organize thousands of research assistants within the University of California system, according to two officials.The officials said Jones feared that adding members in higher education would threaten his power base among blue-collar workers. When Jones would meet with graduate students, according to two Region 5 officials, he would often joke that "my major was partying" as a way to belittle their academic experience.In the end, the power of UAW regional directors is such that Williams, normally a charismatic leader, was unable to move Jones on some of his top organizing priorities, three current and former officials said. Jones also later pushed to let most of the union's Tesla organizers go."Gary started as a factory worker for Ford and dedicated over 40 years of his life as a member and officer of the UAW to improving the lives of that union's members and their families," said his lawyer, Maffeo.But Jones' intransigence did not stop his ascent within the union.When the union's board discussed whom to back for president in fall 2017, its members were aware that Williams supported Jones, according to several people close to the situation. They said the rest of the board quickly backed Jones as well, all but ensuring that he would take over the union at its convention the following June.These people said in interviews that Jones was the only viable candidate by this point, but two also said that Williams' support had helped ensure that this was the case.'Deliver a Clean Union'Since Jones resigned as president last month, the UAW board has replaced him with Rory Gamble, who previously oversaw the union's negotiations with Ford. Gamble has put forth reforms to "deliver a clean union on solid footing" by the time he retires from the post in 2022.They include regular audits of spending by programs run jointly with automakers, a new ethics officer and an ethics hotline. Gamble also announced that Jones' former region would be split into two pieces that would each be merged into another region.And he has indicated that he intends to press for more, unspecified changes. "We have a lot more stuff we're going to be doing," Gamble said in an interview.But many current and former UAW officials say that to be truly effective, the reforms must reduce the power of the union's board members. They said that cozy relationships among union leaders may have led them to tolerate questionable behavior by one another.Bob King, who was the union's president from 2010 to 2014, confronted colleagues about improper training center spending, according to court documents. He said in an interview that he had not sufficiently scrutinized Jones' former region, partly because he was focused on preserving unity among leadership."I do feel anger and responsibility," King said. "I should have been looking at some stuff more closely. I would really encourage the current board to not make the same mistakes."King said he supported the union's current reform efforts but urged it to go further. "They have to figure out how to create a system that is more open and transparent," he said. "It's not about a few bad apples."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| The 10 Biggest Math Breakthroughs of 2019 Posted: 27 Dec 2019 11:51 AM PST |
| Norwegian woman told to leave India after joining citizenship law protest Posted: 27 Dec 2019 01:09 PM PST  A Norwegian woman on holiday in India's southern state of Kerala has been told to leave the country after she joined a protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new citizenship law, authorities said on Friday.
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| Al Sharpton Warns Democrats over Impeachment Focus: ‘Deal with Kitchen-Table Issues’ Posted: 27 Dec 2019 09:14 AM PST  Reverend Al Sharpton cautioned Democrats on Friday over ignoring "kitchen-table issues" in the race to defeat Donald Trump, saying "right now we cannot say with any comfort that Donald Trump would not be reelected."Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe to discuss impeachment, Sharpton warned that a hyper-focused Democratic effort to impeach Trump could distract from a vision of "how we move forward.""Where a lot of the Democrats have made a mistake is they've fed into a narrative that Trump is dictating, rather than saying 'okay, let them do that — I'm back, involved in trying to make you and your life work,'" Sharpton said. "That's the person that could beat Donald Trump."Sharpton urged that Democrats needed to frame the discussion in order to have "Trump react to that, rather than we react to Trump," arguing that the president feeds of the negative attention he receives.> Underlining the need for 2020 Dem contenders and the media to stop focusing on Trump, instead we need to focus on a better agenda for America. MorningJoe pic.twitter.com/9A5nYxs0Ix> > -- Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) December 27, 2019He also pointed to the danger that an election driven by impeachment could devolve into "wonderland" and "nerd politics.""The election is about me, my house, food on my table, my kid's tuition." Sharpton said. "If they can't address that, they're going to miss everybody.""I think voters really that are struggling, which are a lot of the base, which is a lot of the base of the Democratic party, are really trying to deal with kitchen-table issues," Sharpton continued. That's what we've got to address, particularly while you have a president that's bragging about the economy. Right now we cannot say with any comfort that Donald Trump would not be reelected. That should make us uncomfortable."A Friday article from the Wall Street Journal showed wages for low-skilled workers are rising at the fastest rate in more than a decade amid a tight labor market, while in recent months unemployment hit its lowest rate since 1969 and record lows for minorities.
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| Merkel plans Turkey trip to preserve migrant pact: Sueddeutsche Posted: 26 Dec 2019 09:14 AM PST ![Merkel plans Turkey trip to preserve migrant pact: Sueddeutsche]( "Merkel plans Turkey trip to preserve migrant pact: Sueddeutsche") German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit Turkey next month to urge President Tayyip Erdogan to uphold the migration pact he agreed with the European Union, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported, responding to fears that conflict in Syria could unleash a new refugee wave. Erdogan warned on Sunday that Turkey, which already hosts about 3.7 million Syrian refugees, would not be able to handle a new wave of migrants if Syrian-Russian attempts to retake rebel-held Idlib province sent more people fleeing.
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| Massive redwood tree falls and kills hiker in California park Posted: 27 Dec 2019 11:18 AM PST  A man was killed and another person injured by a massive redwood tree that fell inside a California national park, in what officials have described as an "unfortunate, tragic event" that occurred on Christmas Eve.Subhradeep Dutta, a 28-year-old Minnesota resident, was visiting the Muir Woods National Monument when a tree measuring over four feet (one metre) in diameter collapsed.
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| A prominent British lawyer went viral after he killed a fox with a baseball bat while wearing his wife's kimono, and now animal services are investigating Posted: 27 Dec 2019 02:21 AM PST  Jolyon Maugham tweeted just after 8 a.m. Thursday that he had "killed a fox with a baseball bat," before asking followers how their day was going.
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| New York City Increases Police Presence in Jewish Neighborhoods After Possible Anti-Semitic Attacks. Here's What To Know Posted: 27 Dec 2019 02:42 PM PST  Some Jewish neighborhoods of New York City will see an increase in police presence after a string of recent anti-semitic attacks.
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| China Might Have Stolen The Secrets To Israel's Iron Dome Missile Defense Posted: 27 Dec 2019 12:22 PM PST  And that has implications for America.
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| Russia and Ukraine drop mutual gas claims worth millions Posted: 27 Dec 2019 11:23 AM PST  The gas companies of Ukraine and Russia have agreed to drop all financial claims worth billions of pounds against each other in the latest rapprochement between the two nations bitterly divided by a separatist conflict. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview broadcast on Russian state television on Friday that the two countries are withdrawing all of their lawsuits against each other after they agreed on a gas transit deal last week. Russian gas giant Gazprom, which relies on Ukraine as its single largest transit route to Europe, last week agreed to pay out $2.9 billion (£2.2 billion) to Ukraine stemming from a previous dispute over transit fees. The parties will now withdraw all financial claims that run up millions of pounds on both sides. Ukraine, for one, has managed to secure a freeze of Gazprom's assets in several countries such as Great Britain, Switzerland and the Netherland. Those assets will now be released. Mr Novak on Friday hailed the deal as "mutually beneficial" and said that courts would otherwise have taken years to rule on those claims. A Gazprom petrol station in Moscow "It's a good thing," he said in the interview. "It was important for us to start our relations with a clean slate on January 1." The two neighboring countries have been hostile to each other since 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and threw its weight behind separatists in eastern Ukraine. Moscow still claims the annexation of Crimea was legal and denies reports of sending troops and weapons to back the separatist rebels. Both countries have, however, been making small steps towards rapprochement since Ukraine elected its new president, former comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy in April. Mr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin negotiated a major prisoner exchange earlier this year and agreed at a summit meeting earlier this month to release more prisoners by the end of the year.
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| Blumenthal: Some GOP 'have very severe misgivings' about McConnell impeachment strategy Posted: 27 Dec 2019 02:33 PM PST  Richard Blumenthal stated he believes some Senate Republicans are concerned with McConnell working with the White House on Trump's impeachment trial.
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| Montenegro's parliament approves religion law despite protests Posted: 27 Dec 2019 03:43 AM PST  Montenegro's parliament approved on Friday a law on religious communities despite street protests and a last-minute attempt in the chamber by deputies of the pro-Serb opposition to prevent the vote going ahead. Under the law, religious communities in the tiny Adriatic state would need to prove property ownership from before 1918, when predominantly Orthodox Christian Montenegro joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the predecessor of the now-defunct Yugoslavia. The pro-Serb Democratic Front (DF) and other critics of the legislation say it is an attempt to promote the small Montenegrin Orthodox Church, which is not recognized by other major churches, at the expense of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the dominant church in the country of 620,000 people.
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| Turkey Convicts Dissident Journalists on Terrorism Charges Posted: 27 Dec 2019 01:38 AM PST ![Turkey Convicts Dissident Journalists on Terrorism Charges]( "Turkey Convicts Dissident Journalists on Terrorism Charges") (Bloomberg) -- A Turkish criminal court convicted at least seven staffers at the Sozcu newspaper on terrorism-related charges, the latest such ruling targeting journalists critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his policies.The journalists, including veteran columnist Emin Colasan, were sentenced to jail terms of between two and four years on charges that they aided a secretive religious brotherhood called FETO, state media reported on Friday. The journalists have denied the charges.The Sozcu reporters join a long list of journalists and academics to face charges of aiding terrorist groups including the followers of U.S.-based imam Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan accuses of masterminding a failed coup attempt in 2016.The newspaper, known for its secular take on policy issues and critical coverage of the Turkish government, has denied any links with the Gulen network. Turkey's main opposition party CHP says the daily paper has become a target only because it refused to become a mouthpiece for the government.Turkey has put 47 reporters and editors behind bars to become the second largest jailer of journalists in 2019, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.To contact the reporter on this story: Onur Ant in Istanbul at oant@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Gregory L. White, Chris KayFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Nigeria condemns executions of captives held by extremists Posted: 27 Dec 2019 12:47 PM PST ![Nigeria condemns executions of captives held by extremists]( "Nigeria condemns executions of captives held by extremists") Nigeria's government on Friday condemned extremists linked to the Islamic State group after a video circulated of 11 hostages, most of them Christians, being executed. The extremist group, which calls itself the Islamic State West Africa Province, said the captives were executed as revenge for the killing of Islamic State group leaders in Iraq and Syria in October.
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| Russia Has Reclassified The Tu-22 As A Heavy Bomber (And They Are Heavily Armed) Posted: 26 Dec 2019 11:30 PM PST  What does this mean for the New START treaty?
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| Marines in California took the Corps' new Amphibious Combat Vehicle out for a nighttime test in the ocean Posted: 27 Dec 2019 09:02 AM PST  The Corps has used the Amphibious Assault Vehicle since 1972. But starting in late 2020, the Amphibious Combat Vehicle will carry Marines into battle.
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| Iran shuts down internet again as government protests resume Posted: 26 Dec 2019 11:04 AM PST  Iran wants to make sure what happens in its country stays there.As Iranians prepared to launch another round of anti-government protests on Thursday, the government appeared to start shutting down internet and mobile service to seemingly block protesters' messages from reaching the rest of the world. Internet monitoring service NetBlocks reported an internet outage starting at 6:30 a.m., and Reuters reported it "appear[ed] to be spreading."Iranians gathered Thursday to continue protesting rising gas prices, which influence price hikes across the economy. They also commemorated the estimated 1,500 people who had been killed in previous protests against the government. Reuters recently made that estimate via government sources, and it's about five times as high as the toll Amnesty International has predicted. In at least one case, The New York Times' Farna Fassahi reported that a family mourning the death of protester Pouya Bakhtiari was blocked from visiting his grave, and that some of his family members were arrested.> IranProtests > Pouya Bakhtiari's grave is encircled by security forces. Entrance to cemetery blocked, family ordered out & several people arrested. Helicopters hover above. His parents are in jail. pic.twitter.com/cxd5MdeHq8> > -- Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) December 26, 2019Reporter Yashar Ali, who has family in Iran, tweeted that he'd messaged several of his relatives to check in, but none of his messages were received. > Iranian authorities have shut down or slowed down internet/mobile services in certain parts of the country. > > None of the messages I've sent to relatives have gone through. > > I tried a younger relative who is always glued to their phone. Messages haven't been delivered. > > pic.twitter.com/aArT36gc6u> > -- Yashar Ali (@yashar) December 26, 2019More stories from theweek.com A more honest evangelical defense of Trump 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's holiday season Democratic leadership should be afraid of McKayla Wilkes
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| Paramedic charged with poisoning his wife with eye drops to collect a $250,000 life insurance payout Posted: 26 Dec 2019 04:08 PM PST  A paramedic in North Carolina has been charged with first-degree murder for allegedly using eye drops to cause his wife's death and collecting $250,000 from her two life insurance policies.
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| Congress Demands Investigation Into the U.S.'s Nuclear Coffin Posted: 27 Dec 2019 10:30 AM PST  The Runit Dome is leaking radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean.
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| Iowa hate crimes suspect got breaks after earlier arrests Posted: 27 Dec 2019 09:54 AM PST  She was charged with stabbing one boyfriend in the chest in 2017 and, months later, with threatening another with a butcher's knife. Despite her violence and threats, chronic drug use and mental health problems over the last three years, Nicole Poole caught several breaks from Iowa's criminal justice system, court records show.
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| An American Citizen Died After Being Injured in the Deadly Volcanic Eruption in New Zealand Posted: 27 Dec 2019 11:23 AM PST  The latest victim is one of at least 17 casualties from the Dec. 9 volcanic eruption
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| Kansas explosion: 11 people injured in blast at aircraft plant in Wichita Posted: 27 Dec 2019 08:17 AM PST  Officials are responding to multiple reports of an explosion at the Beechcraft aircraft plant in Kansas.Fire crews and emergency units were deployed to the scene as traffic was blocked off near the site of the plant, according to The Wichita Eagle.
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| Trump Pushes Out Tweet Naming Alleged Whistleblower Posted: 26 Dec 2019 04:58 PM PST  On Thursday evening, Donald Trump pushed out on Twitter the name of the alleged whistleblower whose complaint led to the president's impeachment.Trump's personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, retweeted a post by the re-election campaign's official "war room" account that was aimed at the whistleblower's attorney Mark Zaid. "It's pretty simple. The CIA 'whistleblower' is not a real whistleblower!" reads the tweet, which links to a Washington Examiner item. That piece, published Dec. 3, includes the alleged whistleblower's name in the headline. The Daily Beast is declining to publish the name and has not independently verified the identity of the whistleblower.As The Daily Beast reported last month, Trump had gossiped for weeks about this alleged whistleblower with various friends, media figures, and senior administration officials, and had asked some people if they thought it was a good idea for him to publicly announce or tweet the name. Several people close to the president, such as Ivanka Trump and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, had privately cautioned him against saying or posting the name in public, arguing it would be counterproductive and unnecessary.Even Fox News host Sean Hannity, who had also gossiped in recent months with Trump about the alleged whistleblower, hadn't pushed the president hard on this.Multiple sources close to Trump had told The Daily Beast last month that they were genuinely shocked the president hadn't already rage-tweeted the name or blurted it out to the cameras, given his massive fury at the individual. On Thursday night, President Trump's restraint appeared to slip.Zaid — who has worked with The Daily Beast on Freedom of Information Act requests — and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Iraqi president threatens to quit in defiance of Iran's allies in parliament Posted: 26 Dec 2019 04:45 AM PST  Iraqi President Barham Salih refused on Thursday to designate the nominee of an Iran-backed parliamentary bloc for prime minister, saying he would rather resign than appoint someone to the position who would be rejected by protesters. The Bina bloc, led by Iran-backed militia leader Hadi al-Amiri, had nominated Basra Governor Asaad al-Edani to be the next prime minister following weeks of political deadlock. "Out of my desire to stop blood and maintain peace, and with due respect to Asaad al-Edani, I refuse to nominate him," Salih said.
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| Ring and Amazon get slammed with a federal lawsuit that claims the companies failed to secure cameras against hackers Posted: 27 Dec 2019 08:01 AM PST  The company has been accused of negligence and breach of implied contract for failing to properly protect its users against cyberattack.
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| The 20 Best Apps of the 2010s Posted: 27 Dec 2019 06:37 AM PST |
| Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein Associate, under FBI Investigation Posted: 27 Dec 2019 08:17 AM PST  Reuters reports that the FBI has opened an investigation into several associates of late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, including his longtime friend Ghislaine Maxwell, who is accused of being complicit in the financier's underage-sex trafficking ring.Maxwell, 58, is a former girlfriend of the wealthy financier who remained in his circle and is accused by multiple women of helping Epstein find underage girls to have sex with. The British socialite has not been criminally charged, and she has denied all allegations.One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Giuffre, has alleged in a civil lawsuit that Maxwell lured her to the billionaire financier and forced her to have sex with Epstein as well as British Prince Andrew.The British royal family said any interview with Prince Andrew would be "a matter for the FBI."Epstein, 66, was found dead by apparent suicide in his Manhattan jail cell in August, shortly after he was arrested and charged with sex trafficking underage girls as young as 14 from 2002 to 2005. His death sparked a Justice Department investigation and came a day after court documents were unsealed detailing the allegations against billionaire. Epstein had pleaded not guilty to the charges against him before his death."Any co-conspirators should not rest easy," Attorney General William Barr said in August of the ongoing investigation.Maxwell, the daughter of late British media heavyweight Robert Maxwell, has been spotted in various locations since Epstein's death, including a Los Angeles shopping mall.
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| Reports: UK family drowned in Spain didn't know how to swim Posted: 26 Dec 2019 08:29 AM PST  Spanish news reports said Thursday that a member of the British family whose father and two children died in a swimming pool on Christmas Eve has told police that none of the three knew how to swim. Spanish private news agency Europa Press and other media outlets said the family member testified before Civil Guard police. No one was immediately available at the Civil Guard to comment on the report.
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| North Korea Is Broke, But Sitting On $10 Trillion In Mineral Wealth Posted: 27 Dec 2019 02:51 AM PST  Yes, $10 trillion.
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| Tornado leaves damage at Ventura Harbor, scatters strawberries in its wake Posted: 27 Dec 2019 03:51 AM PST  Wild holiday weather touched down in Ventura County on Christmas night, including a tornado at Ventura Harbor and snow atop local mountains.
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| Russia announces a new hypersonic weapon of intercontinental range Posted: 27 Dec 2019 07:14 AM PST  Russia's defense minister reported to President Vladimir Putin that a new hypersonic weapon of intercontinental range became operational Friday following years of tests. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed Putin that the first missile unit equipped with the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle had entered combat duty, the Defense Ministry said.
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| Russia takes over base left by U.S. forces near Syria's Raqqa: TASS Posted: 26 Dec 2019 05:15 AM PST ![Russia takes over base left by U.S. forces near Syria's Raqqa: TASS]( "Russia takes over base left by U.S. forces near Syria's Raqqa: TASS") Russian military police have taken control of a base near the Syrian city of Raqqa that was controlled by U.S. forces until a few days ago, the TASS news agency reported on Thursday. Russian forces entered the nearby city of Raqqa, the former de facto capital of the Islamic State caliphate, earlier this month as Moscow rushed to fill a vacuum created by U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to pull troops from northern Syria. The base, a former school in the village of Tal Samin, is in a strategic area at a crossroads that links the city of Raqqa with central Syria and its northern regions, the state news agency said.
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| Trump sparked a tourism boom in Ghana when he told congresswomen to 'go back' to where they came from Posted: 27 Dec 2019 11:02 AM PST  President Trump's tweets telling four freshmen congresswomen to "go back" to the "totally broken and crime infested places from which they came" had an unexpected and surprising upside: a massive tourism boom in Ghana.Akwasi Agyeman, the chief executive of the Ghana Tourism Authority, told The Washington Post that after Trump's July tweets, interest in visiting the West African nation surged: "People spoke of booking a trip, he said, as a way to strike back at Trump's words." Applications to visit Ghana this year have reportedly risen from 1,000 per week to 10,000.Trump's tweets had been directed at Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), all of whom are U.S. citizens. Omar, a Somali refugee and the only one in the group to have actually been born abroad, was visiting Ghana at the time of Trump's attack. She'd tweeted in response: "So grateful for the honor to return to Mother Africa."In addition to retaliation to Trump, tourists flocked to Ghana in 2019 to honor the "Year of Return," which marked 400 years since the first slave ship reached the state of Virginia; the nation expected "some 500,000 visitors this year, up from 350,000 in 2018," the Christian Science Monitor reports. Celebrity interest, including posts by Cardi B, also enticed Americans across the Atlantic. Many have even moved to Ghana permanently."When I think about going home to the States," one Boston emigrant, Pierre Delva, told the Post, "it almost makes me want to cry."More stories from theweek.com A more honest evangelical defense of Trump 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's holiday season Democratic leadership should be afraid of McKayla Wilkes
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| Al Shabaab shoot locusts with machine guns as Somalia battles biggest swarms in 25 years Posted: 27 Dec 2019 11:08 AM PST  Farmers in southern Somalia are shooting at huge swarms of locusts with heavy machine guns in a desperate attempt to save their crops, according to media affiliated to the jihadist group Al-Shabaab. According to the group's media, insects that have infested farmland around the southwestern town of Tiyeglow, an Al-Shabaab stronghold, are being shot at with a PKM rifle — a machine gun version of the Russian Kalashnikov. The news comes as the country experiences its largest locust infestation for 25 years. Since July, swarms of Desert Locusts from nearby Yemen have invaded vast swathes of the Horn of Africa. A typical swarm can contain up to 150 million insects per square kilometre. Each locust can grow up to 4.3 inches long and travel up to 95 miles a day depending on the wind. Every day, an average swarm can consume the equivalent of a year's worth of food for 2,500 people. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the locusts have already destroyed 70,000 hectares (175,000 acres) of farmland in Somalia and neighbouring Ethiopia. Somali boys attempt to fend off desert locusts as they fly across grazing land Credit: REUTERS/Feisal Omar The plague has been far more serious than experts projected it would be and has been made worse by unseasonably heavy rainfall, which has killed hundreds of people across East Africa over the last few months. According to a spokesperson from the FAO, the favourable weather conditions mean that there is a high chance that the locusts will continue breeding rapaciously for the next three months. Somalia's chaotic fighting makes spraying pesticide by aeroplane - which the FAO has called the "ideal control measure" - impossible, the agency said in a statement. The insects have compounded Somalia's dire humanitarian crisis. The east African nation of 15 million people has been struggling to recover from a severe drought that ended in 2017. In August, aid agencies said that over 2 million people were threatened with severe hunger as crop yields continue to fail. Aid agencies now say that the locusts mean that many Somali farmers will face starvation unless relief reaches them over the next few months.
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| Russia Rejects Extending Iran Arms Embargo, Defying U.S. Posted: 27 Dec 2019 06:53 AM PST ![Russia Rejects Extending Iran Arms Embargo, Defying U.S.]( "Russia Rejects Extending Iran Arms Embargo, Defying U.S.") (Bloomberg) -- Russia, seeing prospects for multi-billion dollar deals, ruled out extending a United Nations-approved arms embargo on Iran that expires in October next year, despite U.S. warnings that lifting the restrictions will jeopardize global security."We're not ready to do the bidding of our American colleagues," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency in an interview published Friday. U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo earlier this year warned that allowing renewed weapons sales to Iran will mean the country will be "unleashed to create new global turmoil."The removal of the UN arms embargo within five years was part of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which the U.S. withdrew from last year. President Donald Trump's administration has pursued a policy of "maximum pressure" on Iran in a bid to force the Islamic Republic back to the negotiating table. Russia, China and European powers have tried unsuccessfully to salvage the landmark accord curbing Iran's nuclear activities, though formally it's still in existence.Ending the ban on military sales "is important for Russia as it will bring it closer to Iran and opens up the world's last big untapped weapons markets," said Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Center of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a defense-industry consultancy in Moscow. According to a recent report published by the think-tank, Iran could become a major customer for Russian hardware, including fighter jets, submarines and air-defense systems.The arms embargo bars Iran from buying offensive weapons. Russia has sold its S-300 anti-aircraft system to Iran after ending a self-imposed moratorium that it put in place at Israel's request.Iran wants to purchase weapons "it has largely been unable to acquire for decades" when the embargo expires, an assessment released by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency said in November.Iran is already targeting military supplies, primarily from Russia but also from China, the Pentagon report found. Iran's potential acquisitions include Russian Su-30 fighters, Yak-130 trainers and T-90 tanks. Iran has also shown interest in buying the S-400 air-defense system and Bastion coastal defense system from Russia, it said.(Adds U.S. assessment of likely Iran arms deals in last two paragraphs)To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Torrey ClarkFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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