| Armed pro-Confederacy groups faced off with antifa protesters at Georgia's Stone Mountain. Alt-right Proud Boys in clashes after church vigil in Michigan. Posted: 16 Aug 2020 04:12 AM PDT  Fighting broke out between white nationalists and far-right groups with counter-protesters, including antifa, in several locations across the US.
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| Joe Biden leading President Trump nationally ahead of DNC, RNC, poll finds Posted: 16 Aug 2020 11:32 AM PDT  An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds Joe Biden leading Trump by 9 points less than 100 days before the November election.
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| Rare 'fire tornado' springs from blazes spreading rapidly across Northern California Posted: 16 Aug 2020 01:19 PM PDT  A rare "firenado" sprung from a California forest fire this weekend and lead the National Weather Service (NWS) to warn residents of "extremely dangerous fire behaviour".Since Friday, the Loyalton fire has burned more than 20,000 acres north of Lake Tahoe. As of Sunday morning, zero per cent of the forest fire has been contained, according to Tahoe National Forest.
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| The Russia-Obsessed Media Does Its Best to Ignore Clinesmith’s Guilty Plea Posted: 16 Aug 2020 03:30 AM PDT  As news broke Friday that John Durham's criminal probe into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation had resulted in a former FBI lawyer being charged with doctoring FISA evidence used against the Trump campaign, the formerly Russia-obsessed mainstream media did its best to look the other way.Kevin Clinesmith, who first worked on the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team and then under special counsel Robert Mueller — only to be fired in February 2018 after it was revealed he sent anti-Trump messages — will plead guilty to one count of making false statements. Clinesmith's admission came after Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz faulted him in a December report for doctoring an email to state that former Trump-campaign national security adviser Carter Page was "not a source" for the CIA — when in fact the email from a CIA official stated the opposite.Clinesmith's plea is not an indictment, but a "criminal information," in which the defendant seeks to avoid being charged by a grand jury. As National Review's Andy McCarthy has pointed out, such a move is often made under a cooperation agreement, suggesting that Clinesmith could be working with Durham.Despite the plea's status as the first major development in Durham's investigation, the media barely batted an eye, abandoning the Russia saga after providing wall-to-wall coverage of Michael Flynn's plea deal with Robert Mueller in December 2017."I think really the most important thing right now is to stay humble, and keep your eyes and your ears open, in terms of what you think you understand about Mike Flynn in this scandal," MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said in her opening monologue the night Flynn, Trump's former national-security adviser, pled guilty to lying to the FBI.But on her show Friday, Maddow, who breathlessly covered "Russia-gate" night after night for two years, totally ignored the Clinesmith news. And she wasn't the only one. CNN's Anderson Cooper failed to cover the plea deal during his two hours of Friday-night programming. Cooper's colleague Don Lemon, who also covered the Russia probe and Flynn's plea relentlessly, couldn't find time to cover Clinesmith's plea during his 10 p.m. time slot.Instead of ignoring the news altogether, Maddow's colleague Chuck Todd reacted to the development by belittling Durham's probe in general, wondering aloud whether the investigation is aimed at "creating confusion about investigating the investigators." MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann decided to challenge the news head on.Weissmann claimed on Twitter that Clinesmith's altering of the email was not "material" to the indictment, because Durham did not say whether Carter Page had, in fact, been a "source" for the CIA in the court document. That Page provided information to the CIA, and was praised by the agency for doing so, is beyond dispute, whether Durham mentioned it in his indictment or not.> Clinesmith is charged with adding the words "not a source" to an email about Carter Page, but no where does the charge say that is false, i.e. that Page was a source for the CIA. Without that, how is the addition "materially" false? Compare with Barr's materiality std for Flynn.> > -- Andrew Weissmann (@AWeissmann_) August 14, 2020The attempt to compare the Flynn guilty plea to Clinesmith's, however, does call into question the media framing of both stories.Elite political reporters and pundits focused their writing and broadcasting on Flynn's guilty plea for months and jumped to far-reaching conclusions about what it meant for the future of Trump's presidency. When Clinesmith's plea was announced Friday, our opinion leaders and news gatherers collectively decided to fit the latest development into the framework they'd developed over the better part of two years, rather than revise their conclusions in the face of new facts.Take New York Times reporter Adam Goldman, who broke the Clinesmith story, for example.Goldman emphasized Friday that "prosecutors did not reveal any evidence in charging documents that showed Mr. Clinesmith's actions were part of any broader conspiracy to undermine Mr. Trump." But in the 23rd paragraph, Goldman mentions that "Mr. Clinesmith had provided the unchanged C.I.A. email to Crossfire Hurricane agents and the Justice Department lawyer drafting the original wiretap application."Taken together, the two statements raise serious questions. If Clinesmith "provided the unchanged" email to other FBI officials, those officials must have been aware that he doctored his email to the FISA court. In other words, when they received the un-doctored email proving that Page had long cooperated with the federal government and chose to say nothing, they became part of a "broader conspiracy."Goldman proved much more willing to assign blame to a broad and nebulous group of actors when Flynn pled guilty in December 2017, calling the news "a politically treacherous development for the president and his closest aides."Goldman went on to write that Flynn's plea implied "that prosecutors now have a cooperative source of information from inside the Oval Office during the administration's chaotic first weeks." But a similar hypothesis about the far-reaching implications of Clinesmith's guilty plea was not advanced in Goldman's most recent report.Other outlets have engaged in similar efforts to downplay the seriousness of Clinesmith's wrongdoing by framing the plea as a single act of unintentional malfeasance. The notion that the Crossfire Hurricane team accidentally failed to mention Page's work for the CIA to the FISA Court is facially absurd. The CIA sent a memo to the team detailing the agency's relationship with the former Trump aide before the FBI filed their first FISA application to surveil Page; the FBI didn't mention it on that first application or their three subsequent application renewals.NPR's justice correspondent Carrie Johnson headlined her report on the Clinesmith plea: "Case Linked To Alleged Abuse Of Surveillance Power." The label "alleged" has been inaccurate since December 2019, when Horowitz released a report detailing "at least 17 significant errors or omissions" in the FBI's FISA applications used against Carter Page. Johnson also reported that the former FBI lawyer had "allegedly doctored an email." In the very next paragraph, she quotes — without a hint of irony — Clinesmith's lawyer, who told her that "Kevin deeply regrets having altered the email."Johnson was not so timid when speculating about the implications of Flynn's guilty plea: After quoting then-White House special counsel Ty Cobb, who argued that Flynn's decision to plead guilty did not implicate additional officials, she explained that "Flynn's plea agreement and cooperation with Mueller would seem to signal the opposite — that the investigation has now reached into the Trump White House itself, and that it still has a long way to go before wrapping up."The Associated Press's 2017 article on Flynn took a similar angle, warning that the development "could be an ominous sign for a White House" and hypothesizing that "if the Trump transition made secret back-door assurances to Russian diplomats, that could potentially run afoul of the Logan Act" — without mentioning that no one has ever been successfully prosecuted under the law since its passage in 1799.But in their report on Clinesmith's plea, the AP opted against commenting on what the development meant for the Russian collusion narrative and chose instead to comment on its utility as a prop that might "lift Trump's wobbly reelection prospects" by exposing what the Trump administration "see[s] as wrongdoing."
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| American tourists are further banned from entering Canada until September and 'citizen detectives' are on the lookout Posted: 15 Aug 2020 07:36 AM PDT  Fear of Americans bringing the coronavirus across the border has led Canadians to report cars with foreign license plates to the police, or vandalize them.
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| Trump makes call for new White House doctor's virus advice Posted: 16 Aug 2020 08:35 AM PDT  President Trump announced a new doctor — Dr. Scott Atlas, a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel — has joined the coronavirus task force as a pandemic adviser.
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| Angola orders Brazil evangelical churches to close Posted: 15 Aug 2020 11:40 AM PDT  Prosecutors seize buildings run by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, alleging corruption.
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| Prince Harry faces prospect of hefty tax bill in California, expert warns Posted: 16 Aug 2020 10:57 AM PDT  The Duke of Sussex faces a significant financial hit from the "zealous" US tax authorities, a royal financial expert has said, warning that the couple had not "thought through" the high cost of Californian life. The Duke and Duchess spent more than $14.6m on an impressive estate in Montecito, California, where they plan to live long-term and raise their son, Archie, in relative normality. But once Prince Harry has spent 183 days in the US over a three-year period, he will be considered a resident for tax purposes and liable for tax. David McClure, author of forthcoming book The Queen's True Worth, said: "California is a high tax state and he's likely to get a hit. "I don't think Harry and Meghan have totally thought through the financial consequences of their exit from the Royal Family. "The more their expenditure rises in California, the greater the pressure to generate their own income in more downmarket, commercial deals. That's always been the worry of the palace." Mr McClure said that the Duke would have to hand over much more detail about his personal finances and earnings than he would ever have had to do in the UK. "The US taxman is much more zealous than his UK counterpart and for that reason, Harry will have to watch his step on the income he generates," he added.
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| Portland police declare riot, use smoke to clear crowd Posted: 15 Aug 2020 09:35 PM PDT  A riot was declared in Oregon's biggest city as protesters demonstrated outside a law enforcement building early Sunday, continuing a nightly ritual in Portland. Officers used crowd control munitions to disperse the gathering outside the Penumbra Kelly building. Protesters had thrown "softball size" rocks, glass bottles and other objects at officers, police said on Twitter.
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| Fact check: Kamala Harris didn't say she'd send police to take firearms via executive order Posted: 15 Aug 2020 01:12 PM PDT  Sen. Kamala Harris never said that she would sign an executive order to allow police to take people's guns away.
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| Iranian commander says Tehran's approach to UAE will change after Israel deal Posted: 16 Aug 2020 02:41 AM PDT |
| Wildfires in Northern California led to a rare 'firenado' — a fire and tornado combination — that tore through the region Posted: 16 Aug 2020 10:57 AM PDT  The National Weather Service issued a fire tornado warning as wildfires raged in Loyalton, California, near the Nevada border.
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| Oklahoma State sorority house reports 23 positive coronavirus cases Posted: 16 Aug 2020 07:54 AM PDT  Greek life has been a source of numerous coronavirus cases in the last few weeks as the nation debates the reopening of schools for in-person learning.
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| He calls himself a ‘witch’ and a ‘god.’ He’s been arrested in the missing mother case Posted: 16 Aug 2020 02:53 PM PDT  An Alabama resident who claims to be a witch, a god and the last person to see missing mother Leila Cavett alive now sits in Broward County Main Jail.
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| Australia surfer saves wife by punching shark Posted: 15 Aug 2020 04:38 AM PDT  A husband leapt on to the shark as it attacked his wife off Port Macquarie, New South Wales.
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| Donald Trump vows to push through 'snapback' sanctions on Iran Posted: 16 Aug 2020 04:26 AM PDT  U.S. President Donald Trump said that he intended to push through a "snapback" of sanctions on Iran, a day after the UN Security Council rejected a U.S. effort to extend a UN arms embargo on Tehran. "We'll be doing a snapback," Trump said during a news conference at his New Jersey golf club on Saturday. "You'll be watching it next week." The U.S. president was apparently referring to the contentious argument that the U.S. remains a "participant" in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal - despite having withdrawn from it in 2018 - and can therefore unilaterally force a return to sanctions if Washington considers that Iran has violated the terms of the deal. The nuclear deal, which was signed in July 2015, has been under massive pressure since the U.S. withdrawal, although major signatories including the UK, France and Germany remain committed.
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| Philippine security forces 'alert' for reprisals after militant held Posted: 14 Aug 2020 10:05 PM PDT  Philippine security forces were on alert Saturday for possible reprisal attacks after arresting a key leader of an Islamic State-linked militant group accused of kidnapping and beheading several foreigners.
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| Online prayers. Social distancing in the pews. Christian leaders debate how to do church amid pandemic. Posted: 15 Aug 2020 05:27 AM PDT  Faith leaders are debating how they can continue to pray in fellowship with others while keeping staff and members safe amid the coronavirus.
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| Eight killed in armed group attack in southern Colombia Posted: 16 Aug 2020 09:23 AM PDT |
| Thousands of volunteers neck-deep in oil battle noxious fumes amid cleanup efforts Posted: 15 Aug 2020 09:47 AM PDT  "It's a people's factory, a mobilization zone for Mauritians," said environmental activist David Sauvage.
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| Texas police say 3 officers shot, but in stable condition Posted: 16 Aug 2020 03:00 PM PDT  Three police officers were shot Sunday and a person remained barricaded inside a home located in a suburb of Austin, Texas, authorities said. The Cedar Park Police Department said on Twitter that officers were responding to a call at a home off Natalie Cove when three were shot. The officers were in stable condition at a local hospital, Interim Police Chief Mike Harmon said on Twitter.
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| Florida’s Nikki Fried lands a speaking spot at Democratic National Convention Posted: 16 Aug 2020 10:08 AM PDT  Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried will have a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention, the party announced Sunday.
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| Barack Obama has privately voiced concerns that Joe Biden could 'f--- things up,' according to a report Posted: 16 Aug 2020 04:50 AM PDT  There are tensions between the Biden and Obama camps over the former President's perceived lack of support for his 2020 White House bid.
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| The couple blamed for an Islamic State attack on their wedding Posted: 16 Aug 2020 05:38 PM PDT  An Islamic State bomb devastated the happiest day of Rehana and Mirwais' life - then they were blamed.
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| Georgia trooper charged with murder in shooting of Black man. 'He was a kind soul,' widow says at vigil. Posted: 15 Aug 2020 01:06 PM PDT  A NAACP leader called the slaying of Julian Edward Roosevelt Lewis another example of a Black man being killed unlawfully by a white police officer.
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| Gunmen kill son of legendary Mexican drug capo Amado Carrillo Posted: 15 Aug 2020 11:26 AM PDT  Prosecutors in northern Mexico say that gunmen have killed Julio César Carrillo — a son of legendary drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
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| Saudi-led coalition downs ballistic missile aimed at kingdom: SPA Posted: 16 Aug 2020 06:47 AM PDT |
| Oklahoma high school student knowingly went to class with coronavirus, officials say Posted: 16 Aug 2020 10:46 AM PDT  The school district said the Westmoore High School student was asymptomatic and believed it was safe to attend the first day of classes.
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| Now Is Not the Time to Silence America’s Best Global Press Ambassadors Posted: 16 Aug 2020 03:30 AM PDT  At a time when access to accurate information is more critical than ever, leadership at Voice of America (VOA), the government-funded international news broadcaster, is actively undermining America's ability to reach those around the globe who need it most.VOA produces journalism in 46 languages around the globe, providing news through an American lens about the critical issues of the day. VOA frequently hires international journalists because they not only have a mastery of critical languages but also are knowledgeable of the journalistic landscape and have sources in the countries VOA serves. Often, their reporting is among the only news that reaches beyond the iron curtain of propaganda in despotic strongholds such as Russia or Venezuela, providing impartial news about the world and their home countries that is untainted by local regimes.But the new head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Michael Pack, who oversees VOA, has quietly refused to sign international journalists' contract renewals, forcing the impacted journalists to leave the country within 30 days unless they have already found a new job that provides a visa.Dozens of VOA employees now find themselves in limbo. Already, many have found their contracts have not been renewed, with no explanation given, often with only a few days' notice that they will soon need to leave the country. Journalists from places such as Iran face severe persecution for their work for the American government; sending them back puts their lives at great risk because of their commitment to our values.In a press release last month, CEO Pack has couched his non-decision in a broad accusation against VOA, citing "systemic, severe, and fundamental security failures" within the agency. But if this is the cause for Pack's decision to allow the contracts to expire, he should say so; instead, not only the press and the American people but also his employees are met with silence. The lack of specificity and evidence to support his claims make the accusations seem illegitimate.The organization has faced criticism, most recently over its reporting related to coronavirus that was perceived by many conservatives and the Trump administration as too soft on China for refusing to interrogate China's falsified coronavirus death count. But this concern has also been applied, with no less egregious examples, to many news organizations at home and abroad. The answer shouldn't be to strip bare the department in the dead of night.The White House's concerns about VOA -- real as they are -- are endemic to the current media environment, not a foreign influence threat metastasizing within the agency. The growth of and threat from foreign propaganda within American media is a topic that VOA covered in detail not even two months ago. What the concerns demand is reform -- thoughtful leadership that can reinvigorate an organization that has been broadcasting an American viewpoint to those suffering under the yoke of repressive governments dating back to Nazi Germany.In a moment where America is pulling back from its global leadership mantle, VOA serves as an indispensable communication outlet charged with "telling America's story." This is particularly true in places where hostile foreign governments actively spread disinformation about the United States. Reducing the international staff of VOA will undermine America's ability to broadcast our values and promote freedom as autocratic and anti-democratic forces gather steam around the globe.The urgency to act is critical. The loss felt by a gutting of our international journalistic capabilities will surely be felt in the years and decades to come -- but the window to act to address it is quickly shrinking. With foreign journalists already in limbo, and with only a 30 days before deportations can begin, Congress must act immediately.Leaders from Capitol Hill have come to the aid of the embattled agency in recent months. In defending the agency, they not only pointed out the bravery of journalists who face down dictators within their home countries but also called on the guiding principles set forth for VOA to "act as a bulwark against disinformation through credible journalism."Four Republicans signed on to this letter: Senators Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Jerry Moran, and Susan Collins. They urged CEO Pack to not "invest in an enterprise that denigrates its own journalists and staff to the satisfaction of dictators and despots, nor can it be one that fails to live up to its promise of providing access to a free and independent press."Achieving these goals -- to the frustration of dictators and America's adversaries around the globe -- requires the aid of VOA's indispensable foreign journalists, a point the staff at VOA have made repeatedly. Particularly when those who want to create false, negative perceptions of America have spared no expense to co-opt, bribe, and otherwise entice journalists, now is no time for America to voluntarily surrender the moral high ground that our democratic press freedoms afford.The most compelling advantages America has in the global war against disinformation and propaganda is the freedom of our voices and the righteousness of our cause. These exist in spite of the problems we have domestically and within our own journalistic ranks. What sets us apart is our capacity to improve, to better live up to our ideals. This differentiator is no less accurate in describing what currently ails VOA.Senators Rubio, Graham, Moran, and Collins should take a stand for these ideals, and actively push back against Pack's irresponsible approach. As members of the president's party, they are the only ones in a position to apply the kind of pressure that could avoid hamstringing America's international legacy and global reception. Never has it been more important to tell America's story, and do it in a way that reflects the truth to a world desperately in need of it.
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| Black Portland reflects on role of white allies in movement Posted: 16 Aug 2020 08:30 AM PDT  More than two months of intense protests in Portland, Oregon — one of America's whitest major cities — have captured the world's attention and put a place that's less than 6% Black at the heart of the conversation about police brutality and systemic racism. Since May, nightly demonstrations in Oregon's largest city have featured overwhelmingly white crowds — from middle-aged mothers marching arm in arm to the mayor getting tear-gassed by federal agents to teenagers dressed in black smashing police precinct windows and tossing fireworks at authorities. The weeks of often-chaotic protests have transformed Portland into a microcosm of the national debate on race and police brutality.
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| An angry bull chased a crew of firefighters down a Los Angeles road while they were responding to the Lake Fire Posted: 15 Aug 2020 10:00 PM PDT  The Ventura County Fire Department called the bull "Ferdinand," and said firefighters had been clearing the roads when the bull gave chase.
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| Barack Obama reportedly said: 'Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f... things up' Posted: 15 Aug 2020 07:57 PM PDT  Barack Obama reportedly expressed private doubts about Joe Biden becoming the Democrat presidential nominee in 2020. According to Politico the former president told one Democrat: "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f... things up." Mr Obama was also said to have spoken about his own understanding of the 2020 Democrat electorate in Iowa. "And you know who really doesn't have it? Joe Biden," he reportedly said. There were said to have been lingering tensions between the two after Mr Obama supported Hillary Clinton for the nomination in 2016. Leon Panetta, Mr Obama's defence secretary, told Politico: "He [Mr Biden] was loyal, I think, to Obama in every way in terms of defending and standing by him, even probably when he disagreed with what Obama was doing. "To some extent, [he] oftentimes felt that that loyalty was not being rewarded." Some of Mr Obama's aides were said to have believed Mr Biden took discussions in the wrong direction when he was vice president. In his book Ben Rhodes, Mr Obama's former deputy national security adviser, wrote that "in the Situation Room, Biden could be something of an unguided missile". Mr Biden's aides were said to have believed his skills getting things achieved in Congress were under-appreciated. Since Mr Biden secured the Democrat nomination Mr Obama has enthusiastically backed him and will be a keynote speaker at the Democrat Convention next week.
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| Mogadishu attack: Somali troops end deadly siege at Elite Hotel Posted: 16 Aug 2020 12:39 PM PDT  At least 10 people are dead after al-Shabab militants stormed the Elite Hotel in the capital.
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| Islamic State has gained its first outpost in southern Africa after the capture of strategic port in Mozambique Posted: 16 Aug 2020 08:54 AM PDT  Government troops abandoned Mocimboa da Praia last week but reinforcements have been rushed to the area to recapture the city from the insurgents.
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| Two brothers in Alabama, ages 3 and 1, die in 'tragic accident' after getting into a hot car on their own Posted: 16 Aug 2020 01:31 PM PDT  The parents told authorities they thought the two boys had been playing in their rooms but discovered them unresponsive inside the vehicle.
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| How the U.S. Government Enforced Prohibition by Poisoning Americans Posted: 15 Aug 2020 02:13 AM PDT  On Dec. 28, 1926, New York City was facing a crisis. Charles Norris, the city's first-ever medical examiner, had no choice but to speak out. In a matter of days, 23 people in the city had died and 89 had been hospitalized after drinking bootlegged liquor that had contained dangerous levels of chemicals. While some public health officials today may be fighting the government's inaction in enforcing coronavirus restrictions, in the Prohibition era the problem was the reverse. Calvin Coolidge's government had just imposed new measures to force revelers to abide by Prohibition. These measures were killing American citizens. Whiskey, Fraud & Murder: The Bootleg King of Prohibition"The government knows it is not stopping drinking by putting poison in alcohol. It knows what bootleggers are doing with it and yet it continues its poisoning processes, heedless of the fact that people determined to drink are daily absorbing that poison," Norris said in a statement as New Yorkers who had fallen ill from illegal alcohol continued to die. "Knowing this to be true, the United States government must be charged with the moral responsibility for the deaths that poisoned liquor causes, although it cannot be held legally responsible."By Dec. 31, The New York Times was reporting that the holiday death toll from "poison rum" had jumped to 47. But the grim statistics weren't enough to stop the Prohibition zealots headed by the Department of Treasury from doctoring the industrial alcohol supply with dangerous substances like methanol, the same chemical that recently led the FDA to issue a warning about using certain unsafe hand sanitizers popping up amid pandemic shortages. The U.S. government would continue to doctor the industrial alcohol supply through the end of Prohibition knowing that it was killing U.S. citizens. It is believed around 10,000 people died as a result.* * *"On the last day before the taps ran dry, the streets of San Francisco were jammed"Alcohol is all around us. It can be found in our household products, perfumes, disinfectants, hand sanitizers, and as an additive in fuel, not to mention our liquor cabinets. Well before Prohibition, the government took steps to differentiate industrial alcohol from sipping spirits by mandating the addition of chemicals to grain alcohol to make the former undrinkable. This process resulted in what was called denatured alcohol, or wood spirits.Manufacturers of industrial alcohol were happy to follow the 1906 regulations as the additives allowed their products to avoid the taxes levied on the those being slung by bartenders around the country. Plus, a tasty happy hour cocktail was readily available. Who would even consider drinking the stuff being used to clean homes?But that all changed when the temperance movement gained a foothold in American society. The stakes were high for the teetotalers. They were after no less than saving the American soul. America has perhaps never seen a country-wide party the likes of the one that occurred on the eve of Jan. 17, 1920, when the Volstead Act would go into effect. "On the last day before the taps ran dry, the streets of San Francisco were jammed. A frenzy of cars, trucks, wagons and every other imaginable form of conveyance crisscrossed the town and battled its steepest hills. Porches, staircase landings and sidewalks were piled high with boxes and crates delivered just before transporting their contents would become illegal," Daniel Okrent wrote in Smithsonian Magazine. In New York, a dramatic bar crawl ensued, with bartenders serving up the last legal sips before the clock struck midnight. Susan Cheever evokes the scene in Drinking in America: "Black-bordered invitations had summoned the faithful to funerals all over town to perform 'the last rites and ceremonies for our spirited friend John Barleycorn.' At the Park Avenue Hotel, black-robed girls wept and keened, and at the bar there was a last round of sad, slurred toasts. At Healey's on Sixth Avenue, patrons tossed their empty glasses into a silk-lined coffin, and every customer was given a small casket as they left for the last time 'to remember the fallen.' Uptown, women in cloche hats and ermine coats chug-a-lugged their last drinks."It should have been clear from the get-go that Prohibition was going to be nearly impossible to enforce. It was enacted over the veto of President Wilson, and his successor blatantly flouted the law in the White House; it only outlawed the selling, manufacturing, and transportation of alcohol, not the drinking of it; and then there is the fact that Americans have never taken infringements on their personal liberty well.From its inception, the United States has been a land of entrepreneurs and there was no bigger, more exciting, or more potentially lucrative challenge in the 1920s than figuring out how to slake the thirst of suffering citizens. The IRS, which was tasked with Prohibition enforcement, was no match for the bootleggers and criminal enterprises that the Volstead Act wrought."Stills sprang up in every household. A six-thousand-gallon pipeline of beer was run through the Yonkers sewer system to bring beer from boats on the Hudson River to local saloons. One Midwestern gang froze unmarked bottles in ice blocks bound across Lake Huron, a trick that worked well until the weather turned unseasonably warm. Another gang drove over the Canadian border dressed as priests and were waved through by customs without anyone looking under their robes—until the day one of them had a flat tire," Cheever writes. "Rum runners in everything from rowboats to yachts used the nation's beaches as their landing points… Struggling to staunch the flow of liquor, revenue agents dumped enough beer, wine, and whiskey into New York Harbor to float a drunken armada."While drinkable liquor was smuggled into the country, huge quantities of alcohol was also being produced in the U.S. using the often-stolen industrial supplies. Bootlegged liquor has always held a tinge of danger. If produced incorrectly, bathtub gin can be deadly. In the early days of Prohibition, illegal alcohol supplies were already taking their toll. But the policies the U.S. government began to implement towards the end of 1926 accelerated the problem.By the mid-1920s, it was clear the dry faction led by the fanatic Anti-Saloon League president Wayne Wheeler had a problem. The drinking rates six years into Prohibition were skyrocketing. The policy meant to save America had backfired. The only thing to do, they thought, was double down. Behind the scenes, there was a war raging, one that has often been called the "war of the chemists." With industrial alcohol the main supply available, bootleggers employed chemists to remove the additives to turn the undrinkable drinkable. The government, in turn, decided to assemble their own flock of scientists to create a new formula for industrial alcohol that would be harder to manipulate. On Dec. 30, 1926, the New York Times announced that the government's new Formula A would double the amount of poisonous chemicals present in wood alcohol.According to Katie Serena in All That's Interesting, the new formulas included "kerosene, gasoline, iodine, zinc, nicotine, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, quinine and acetone. Most dangerous of all, they demanded that at least 10 percent of the total product be replaced with methyl alcohol or methanol. Today, methanol is most commonly used as an ingredient in antifreeze." While the government increased the poison in the industrial alcohol supply, Wheeler and his allies also waged a disinformation campaign, claiming that this new formula would be more unpleasant than the old, but no more deadly. And besides, they contended, it wasn't their fault if people were flouting the law and choosing to drink illegally. "The Government is under no obligation to furnish the people with alcohol that is drinkable when the Constitution prohibits it. The person who drinks this industrial alcohol is a deliberate suicide," Wheeler told the New York Times. Seeing the devastation occurring under his watch in New York City as people continued to drink bootleg liquor made from this new formula, Norris fought back against the government's policy. In a December 1928 piece in The North American Review, he wrote, "In a word, wood alcohol is not 'poison liquor.' It is simply poison. If it gets into liquor, the liquor is poisoned." The occasion of the article was the death of 25 New Yorkers from badly processed alcohol over three days in October 1928. "They are definitely dead and there is no doubt as to the cause of their death," Norris wrote. "These are not statistics, but the bare record of a tragedy as shocking and in a sense dramatic as a fearful crash on the subway." A search of the New York Times archives from 1927 to 1933 turns up a slew of headlines revealing the extent of the deaths from poisonous alcohol, not to mention the less deadly but no less devastating effects like blindness and hallucinations: June 20, 1927: "Three die from alcohol"; Feb. 28, 1929: "Alcohol Deaths Show Steady Rise"; Aug. 11, 1930: "Found dead of alcohol poisoning"; Oct. 23, 1930: "Alcohol Deaths Up 300% Since 1920"; August 17, 1932: "Dies After Drinking Wood Alcohol." "Governments used to murder by the bullet only. Now it's by the quart," humorist Will Rogers commented.In the end, Prohibition was one big deadly bust. On Dec. 5, 1933, it was repealed. Not only had the government knowingly aided in the deaths of thousands of its own citizens in its paternalistic effort to save them, but it had also left the country worse off than it had been when bars were allowed to operate in the open.As Cheever writes, "Prohibition was supposed to make the country healthy, but instead it made them sick. Prohibition was supposed to cut down on crime, eradicate poverty, and reunite the American family. Instead it increased crime immeasurably and created organized crime syndicates."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| An 'irate' woman struck an American Airlines employee after she was barred from boarding her flight without a face mask, police said Posted: 15 Aug 2020 04:53 PM PDT  Yolanda Yarbrough was arrested and charged with assault after she struck the American Airlines employee in the face, police said.
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| Pam Bondi on ex-FBI lawyer pleading guilty in Durham probe Posted: 15 Aug 2020 06:46 AM PDT  Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General, joins 'Fox and Friends Weekend.'
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| Israel launches new air strikes on Hamas positions in Gaza, closes fishing zone Posted: 15 Aug 2020 11:48 PM PDT  Israel's army launched new air strikes on Sunday against Hamas positions in Gaza and closed the fishing zone around the Palestinian enclave in response to rockets and firebombs sent into Israeli territory. The measures came after a week of heightened tensions, including clashes on Saturday evening along the Gaza-Israeli border, the army said. Dozens of Palestinian rioters burned tyres, hurled explosive devices and grenades towards the security fence and attempted to approach it," the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement. Long-simmering Palestinian anger has flared further since Israel and the UAE on Thursday agreed to normalise relations, a move Palestinians saw as a betrayal of their cause by the Gulf country. Over the past week Israeli forces have carried out repeated night-time strikes on targets linked to the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. The army says they were carried out in response to makeshift firebombs attached to balloons and kites which have been sent into southern Israel, causing thousands of fires on Israeli farms and communities. There were 19 such Palestinian attacks on Saturday alone, according to Israeli rescue services. In response, "IDF fighter jets and aircraft struck a number of Hamas military targets in the Gaza Strip," the army said, adding that among the targets hit were a Hamas "military compound and underground infrastructure". Early on Sunday the IDF said two more rockets had been fired into Israel from Gaza and intercepted by its Iron Dome defence system. "In response, our Air Force just struck Hamas terror targets in Gaza, including a military compound used to store rocket ammunition," it said.
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| Delaware thrust into unlikely starring role in 2020 campaign Posted: 15 Aug 2020 05:44 AM PDT  Biden announced California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate this past week in Wilmington and they made their public debut at the suburban high school where Biden votes. The campaign then operated for three days from the opulent Hotel DuPont downtown, where Biden had announced his first run for Senate, for the 1972 race.
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| Forecasters watching two new tropical waves that have formed in the Atlantic Posted: 16 Aug 2020 07:26 AM PDT  Forecasters are monitoring two new tropical waves in the Atlantic Ocean, the National Hurricane Center said Sunday morning as two other systems, what was left of previous Tropical Depression Josephine and Post-Tropical Cyclone Kyle, lost steam.
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| Germans are 'waking up' to anti-Black racism after George Floyd protest Posted: 16 Aug 2020 01:30 AM PDT  "Policing starts with stops and ID'ing but can also end in death," said activist Tahir Della.
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