| Bloomberg to spend 'nine figures' in Florida, allowing Biden campaign to focus resources in other swing states Posted: 13 Sep 2020 05:31 AM PDT  Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has set his sights on Florida as he attempts to help push the Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, into the Oval Office, The Washington Post reports.Bloomberg plans to spend at least $100 million campaigning for Biden in Florida, though his advisers refused to say if the total dollar figure would actually be higher, acknowledging only that it's a "nine figure" plan.Democratic strategists have been waiting to see how Bloomberg, who spent more than $1 billion of his own money on a failed bid for the White House earlier this year, would put his vast wealth to use this election cycle, and, for now at least, the Sunshine State is the beneficiary, with most of the money going toward television and digital ads in both English and Spanish. Bloomberg's adviser Kevin Sheekey said the billionaire believes investing in Florida will allow the Biden campaign and other outside Democratic groups — who have generally shied away from advertising in Florida because it's too expensive, the Post notes — to spend in other states, especially Pennsylvania.Bloomberg is also reportedly hoping to encourage early voting in the state, which begins Sept. 24, so that a potential Biden win could be called soon after polls close since Florida reports early ballots shortly after voting ends. In that case, there would theoretically be less confusion among the public over who won not jut Florida, but the election overall. Winning Florida would go a long a way for Biden, the Post reports. If he does, he could likely win the presidency by retaining every state Hillary Clinton won in 2016 and winning just one other toss up state among Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.Biden is holding on to a lead in Florida, but some polls indicate it's shrinking as he struggles to win over Latino voters in the state. Read more at The Washington Post.More stories from theweek.com The true Election Day nightmare scenario The epistemic crisis of political polling Are the troops turning on Trump?
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| Oregon's fire marshal resigned as wildfires rage near Portland and the state prepares for a 'mass fatality incident' Posted: 13 Sep 2020 07:14 AM PDT  A source told Oregon Live that the head of the Oregon State Police had "lost confidence" in Marshal Jim Walker's ability to lead through the crisis.
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| Professor who used racial slur in class is put on leave Posted: 12 Sep 2020 12:34 PM PDT  "I want to thank students for using their voices to share the troubling and disturbing language that was used by your professor in class," a university official wrote to students.
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| Californian residents defying evacuation orders despite deadly fires sweeping state Posted: 12 Sep 2020 10:23 AM PDT  'I don't feel it's going to come this way'
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| Philippines deports US Marine pardoned for transgender killing Posted: 12 Sep 2020 09:38 PM PDT  A US marine convicted of killing a transgender woman in the Philippines was deported on Sunday after being pardoned by President Rodrigo Duterte.
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| A Delta Airlines flight had to turn around after a passenger refused to comply with face covering guidelines Posted: 13 Sep 2020 03:22 PM PDT  The flight returned to a Detroit Metro Airport gate, local outlets said. As of August 28, Delta had banned 240 customers who refused to wear a mask.
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| 2 killed, 6 seriously injured in New Jersey shooting near Rutgers University campus Posted: 13 Sep 2020 11:56 AM PDT  The shooting, which took place in New Brunswick near the Rutgers University campus, has no affiliation with the school or its students, police said.
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| Greece, Turkey signal willingness to talk about sea dispute Posted: 13 Sep 2020 12:38 AM PDT  After weeks of tensions in the eastern Mediterranean, Greece and Turkey have signaled a willingness to start talks aimed at resolving a long-standing sea dispute tied to potentially lucrative offshore gas deposits. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis welcomed the return of a Turkish survey ship to port Sunday from a disputed martime area at the heart of the summer standoff between Greece and Turkey over energy rights. Mitsotakis said he was ready to try to restart long-stalled talks, signaling that the two countries could be inching toward negotiations after weeks of increasingly bellicose rhetoric.
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| Chinese military calls US biggest threat to world peace Posted: 13 Sep 2020 05:54 AM PDT  China's Defence Ministry on Sunday blasted a US report on the country's military ambitions, saying it is instead the US that poses the biggest threat to the international order and world peace. The statement follows the September 2nd release of the annual US Defense Department report to Congress on Chinese military goals, which it said would have "serious implications for US national interests and the security of the international rules-based order." Defence Ministry spokesman Col. Wu Qian called the report a "wanton distortion" of China's aims and the relationship between the People's Liberation Army and China's 1.4 billion people. "Many years of evidence shows that it is the US that is the fomenter of regional unrest, the violator of the international order and the destroyer of world peace," he said.
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| Federal judge blocks U.S. Postal Service from sending "patently false" mailers to voters Posted: 13 Sep 2020 12:22 PM PDT  Warning that "patently false" information "will sow confusion," judge stops mailers from going to Colorado voters
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| Oregon officials said they are preparing for a 'mass fatality incident' as 500,000 people stand in evacuation zones from the wildfires ravaging the West Coast Posted: 12 Sep 2020 05:43 PM PDT  There are currently 6 reported deaths in Oregon due to the wildfires that have devastated millions of acres, as well as more in other Western states.
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| Israeli top model Bar Refaeli sentenced in tax evasion case Posted: 13 Sep 2020 05:47 AM PDT  Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli was sentenced on Sunday to nine months' community service and her mother was ordered jailed for 16 months for tax evasion on earnings from her international career. The former Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover model, now a popular TV personality in Israel, had pleaded guilty to tax offences under a plea bargain that also included her mother and agent, Tzipi Refaeli. Israel tax authorities accused the two of evading paying taxes on income of about $7.2 million.
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| Officer caught on own camera saying 'let's get these motherf******' at George Floyd protests Posted: 13 Sep 2020 10:29 AM PDT  The footage also shows an officer hitting a fleeing man with a motorcycle
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| Tucker Carlson Calls Climate Change ‘Systemic Racism in the Sky’ Posted: 11 Sep 2020 07:27 PM PDT  In a segment on the raging West Coast wildfires, Fox News host Tucker Carlson tried to make the baffling argument that Democratic leaders' warnings about climate change are "like systemic racism in the sky." He extended the bizarre metaphor, lamenting that there was supposedly no explanation for how climate change causes more wildfires (there is!) and mocking Democrats for not explaining science to him: "You can't see it, but rest assured, it's everywhere, and it's deadly. Like systemic racism, it is your fault. The American middle class did it. They caused climate change. They ate too many hamburgers. They drove too many SUVs. They had too many children." > Tucker Carlson argues that climate change is like "systemic racism in the sky" in that it doesn't exist but liberals want you to believe its there. pic.twitter.com/dMaZ1QOtqy> > — nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) September 12, 2020Carlson's show is part of the primetime Fox News lineup that makes up the most-watched television in America, averaging 3.5 million viewers per night alongside Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, according to Nielsen Media Research.Scientists agree the rising average year-round temperatures brought about by human activity are causing more fires along the West Coast. Climate change, specifically drought spanning multiple years, has accelerated the rate at which wildfires appear and their intensity, according to a joint report released earlier this year by scientists from Columbia University, the University of Colorado, and the University of Idaho. The blazes in Washington, Oregon, and California have collectively already burned more than four million acres—three million in California and one million in Oregon—the most of any recorded fire season in either state. Experts say the West's yearly wrestling match with wildfire is just beginning. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has warned residents that the peak of the conflagration is yet to come, and Oregon Governor Kate Brown told Oregonians to prepare for what "could be the greatest loss of human lives and property due to wildfire in our state's history." More than 100,000 people have already been evacuated from their homes in Oregon, and at least five have died. In California, 20 people have died from the fires. > This is hands down the most concussed defense of climate change denial I've ever heard: "A climate change denier is anyone who thinks the ruling class has done a poor job" pic.twitter.com/61NgsHaxCN> > — nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) September 12, 2020Speaking before an image of Newsom, Carlson defended climate change denial as a matter of political power and wealth rather than one of science."What is a climate change denier? A climate change denier is anyone who thinks the ruling class has done a very poor job running their state, running their country, or protecting the people they were hired to protect and watch over," he said. "So are we climate change deniers if we point out that the state of California has failed to implement meaningful deforestation that might have dramatically slowed the spread of these wildfires? Does that make us deniers?"Carlson willfully misunderstands forest management in the same way President Donald Trump does. Both have blamed the state, run by a Democratic governor, for inadequate forest management, but the California government manages less than 3 percent of the state's forested land. The federal government, by contrast, oversees over half of all California's forested acres. Despite the imbalance, Trump has threatened to withhold disaster funding from California over the fires.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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| Secretive Pentagon research program seeking to replace human hackers with AI Posted: 13 Sep 2020 09:35 AM PDT  The Joint Operations Center inside Fort Meade in Maryland is a cathedral to cyber warfare. Part of a 380,000-square-foot, $520 million complex opened in 2018, the office is the nerve center for both the U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency as they do cyber battle.
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| A law enforcement group in Texas put up billboards warning visitors to Austin that the city slashed its police department budget Posted: 13 Sep 2020 07:02 AM PDT  "Warning!!! Austin Police Defunded Enter at Your Own Risk," reads one of the billboards, erected by the Texas Municipal Police Association.
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| Historic Afghan peace talks fraught with uncertainty Posted: 12 Sep 2020 03:40 AM PDT  The U.S. had hoped negotiations would start within two weeks of Feb. 29, when it signed a peace deal with the Taliban, effectively acknowledging a military stalemate after nearly two decades of conflict. The Afghan government, which was in the throes of a political crisis over a disputed presidential election held last September, balked at being told to free 5,000 Taliban but eventually relented. U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who invested a year and a half negotiating the peace deal, called negotiations between Afghanistan's warring sides "a historic opportunity for peace ... one that benefits all Afghans and contributes to regional stability and global security."
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| Internet searches for gut problems provide early warning of Covid-19 hotspots Posted: 13 Sep 2020 08:21 AM PDT  A surge in internet searches about gut ailments is helping researchers predict the next Covid-19 hotspots, a study has revealed. Massachusetts General Hospital found areas where there was a spike in Google queries relating to diarrhoea and loss of appetite frequently reported a sharp rise in cases of coronavirus three to four weeks later. Other markers included a loss of taste, nausea and abdominal pain. A link between Covid-19 and gut ailments was first identified in China earlier this year, with about a third of sufferers reporting gastrointestinal rather than respiratory sickness. Other patients complained of suffering from both.
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| Louisville anxiously awaits Breonna Taylor decision — and whether justice or chaos reigns Posted: 13 Sep 2020 03:00 AM PDT  The mother of Breonna Taylor called out Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, telling him to "have the power and courage to call my child yours."
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| Donald Trump Jr. on Mueller team wiping DOJ phones, fallout from Bob Woodward book Posted: 12 Sep 2020 05:17 PM PDT  Donald Trump Jr., executive vice president of the Trump Organization and author of 'Liberal Privilege,' joins Jesse Watters on 'Watters' World.'
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| Tropical Storm Sally forecast to become hurricane as it targets New Orleans, gulf states Posted: 13 Sep 2020 08:26 AM PDT  On Saturday, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency as the storm moved closer.
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| Saudi coalition attack Houthi military sites in Yemen's Sanaa: Al-Arabiya Posted: 12 Sep 2020 08:36 PM PDT |
| ‘At the Intersection of Two Criminalized Identities’: Black and Non-Black Muslims Confront a Complicated Relationship With Policing and Anti-Blackness Posted: 13 Sep 2020 09:47 AM PDT  The BLM Movement is forcing Muslims to reckon with anti-Blackness and scrutinize their already tense relationship with police
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| Elon Musk blasted fellow billionaire Bill Gates, saying he's clueless about electric trucks Posted: 13 Sep 2020 02:03 AM PDT  Tesla happens to be working on an electric truck, the Tesla Semi. The vehicle is two years behind its original 2019 delivery schedule.
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| San Francisco could be first major American city to let 16-year-olds vote Posted: 13 Sep 2020 02:24 PM PDT  San Francisco could give children as young as 16 the right to vote in local elections if a landmark proposition passes in the US's November elections. The proposition to lower the voting age by two years will be decided by the city's residents, who rejected the legislation when it was first proposed in 2016, according to NBC News. "Our motivation here first and foremost is to make sure that we put new voters in a position to establish that habit in the first election they're eligible for, and then to continue participating throughout their lives which is good for democracy on every level," Vote 16 campaign manager, Brandon Klugman, told NBC News.
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| Top prosecutor on DOJ's investigation of the Russia probe just resigned out of fear of Bill Barr Posted: 12 Sep 2020 10:25 AM PDT  The investigative team is reportedly being pressed for political reasons produce a report before its work is done
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| Anti-Shiite protesters march for second day in Karachi Posted: 12 Sep 2020 04:57 AM PDT  Tens of thousands of anti-Shiite protesters including demonstrators linked to Sunni extremists rallied in Pakistan's Karachi on Saturday, in the second day of protests that have sparked fears of sectarian violence.
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| Thousands of Israelis protest outside Netanyahu’s residence Posted: 12 Sep 2020 01:31 PM PDT  Thousands of Israelis demonstrated outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's official residence in central Jerusalem late Saturday, demanding he resign over his trial on corruption charges and what is widely seen as his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. With Israel reporting record levels of new coronavirus cases each day, the country appears to be headed toward a nationwide lockdown this week ahead of the Jewish New Year. Saturday's demonstration came a day after Israel announced an agreement to establish diplomatic relations with Bahrain, the second Arab country to normalize ties with Israel in under a month and just the fourth overall.
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| The oldest US World War II veteran received more than 10,000 birthday cards from around the world for his 111th birthday Posted: 12 Sep 2020 10:43 AM PDT  Lawrence Brooks was born in 1909, drafted at age 31, and served in the predominately Black 91st Engineer Battalion during World War II.
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| 'No progress' has been made to prevent extinction of threatened species in UK, RSPB warns Posted: 13 Sep 2020 09:41 AM PDT  "No progress" has been made to prevent the extinction of threatened species in the UK, a leading conservation charity has warned. The Royal Society for the Protection Birds (RSPB) has described the recent decline in the population of rare birds as "catastrophic" and has urged the Government to take immediate action. Government analysis of its progress under international goals, agreed in 2010 to reverse declines in nature by this year, shows it is meeting or exceeding five out of 20 targets to help wildlife and habitats. But an assessment by the RSPB suggests the UK is doing worse than the official analysis, and is making no progress or is going in the wrong direction in six areas. Two-fifths of species have been in decline since 1970, the RSPB said. The charity's chief executive Beccy Speight said: "The UK is not alone in failing to meet the ambitious targets set out 10 years ago, but it is now time that the high ambitions set by successive governments becomes action at home as well as leading the international effort. "Every country in the UK must create legally binding targets to restore nature, invest in nature and green jobs, and support farmers to produce healthy food that's good for people, climate and wildlife. Breeding waders such as redshanks, lapwings and dunlins in particular have seen their numbers decimated over the past 35 years. A study from the charity found that the population of redshanks declined by 53 per cent between 1985 and 2011 and have estimated this figure to have now risen even higher. The charity said that without government intervention "it won't be terribly long before we lose these birds permanently". Kate Jennings, head of site conservation policy at the RSPB, told the Telegraph: "If the next decade is like the last one, I'd be surprised if we have any left at the end of it." "There is a massive gap between the Government's rhetoric and the reality of what's actually happening". Over £2.9 billion a year for the next decade on environmental land management and £615 million annually for restoring and creating habitats is needed to combat this problem, the charity estimated.
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| Navalny’s No. 2 Suspects ‘Putin’s Chef’ Ordered Novichok Hit on Opposition Leader Posted: 11 Sep 2020 09:14 PM PDT  MOSCOW—Tears of joy ran down Lyubov Sobol's face when news came through that Alexei Navalny had awakened after more than two weeks in a coma. The 32-year-old blond lawyer, who cultivates a nerdy look with her dark-rimmed glasses, spent a decade fighting Russia's state corruption at Navalny's side. His partial recovery doesn't make her work any less dangerous.In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, Sobol revealed who she suspects of poisoning Navalny and why. With Navalny in a hospital in Berlin, Sobol is the de facto leader of the Russian opposition. In spite of the arrests, blackmail, and violent attacks, she has not left Russia, she says, because this fight is her life.Navalny hired Sobol when she was a teenager in law school, as the first employee for his nonprofit group, the Anti-Corruption Foundation. Together they have produced dozens of video investigative reports about high-profile, outrageous cases of corruption by President Vladimir Putin's closest allies. These reports have touched his inner circle: the petroleum kingpins Igor Sechin and Gennady Timchenko, and the Kremlin-linked catering magnate Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as "Putin's chef." More than 36 million people watched Navalny's investigation into the former president and prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, alleging he had secret real-estate holdings valued at $85 million in 2017. "We showed millions of Russians how corrupt our prime minister was and Putin replaced Medvedev, we demonstrated ex-Prosecutor General Yuriy Chaika's corruption and Putin fired him; Putin tried to change a lot, except for himself," Sobol said.Navalny Had Many Enemies in the Kremlin—but Who Wanted Him Dead?Putin's opposition has suffered countless violent attacks. Activists have been jailed, tortured and assassinated; but today one man's attacks on the group stand out, Sobol said."Navalny's poisoning does not look like a Chechen attack; it has the handwriting of secret services," she said. "Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is extremely dangerous, has the Kremlin's license for persecutions, for murder both inside Russia and in other countries, including Africa and Syria."Sobol does not have any hard evidence to link Prigozhin to the attack on Navalny."It was wrong for Interpol to drop the extradition notice for Prigozhin. The world's leaders should realize that Prigozhin's hands are absolutely free now to interfere in the U.S. presidential election in November. He has millions of corrupt dollars to spend on the interference."Sobol says Prigozhin once attacked her family: Somebody stabbed her husband, a sociologist, Sergei Mokhov, with a syringe. The attacker injected a cocktail of chemicals that made him lose consciousness. "Poisonings are Prigozhin's style, he waited for two months after our very popular investigation into his financial schemes—more than four million people watched it. Then, he conducted an attack on my husband," Sobol said.Prigozhin is not known to be under investigation for any crime in Russia and his company has sued Navalny's group for slander related to other accusations."If not for the quick ambulance pickup and the hospital around the corner from our house, my husband would have been dead," Sobol said.Protests are all but banned in Russia. People who gather in the street are punished with high fines and time behind bars. Putin regularly talks about the West financing Russian opposition: "Countries that conduct an independent policy or that simply stand in the way of somebody's interests get destabilized," he said in 2014.Some voices in Russia's liberal circles say it's time for a female leader to take on Putin. Yulia Navalny, whose prominence has risen since she took control of the situation when her husband was poisoned, is one potential candidate. Sobol is another. "Women's rights, gender equality become acute issues on Russia's agenda. People feel a lot of sympathy and support for Navalny's wife Yulia, who managed to win the battle with authorities, demonstrate incredible courage, and move her husband to Germany," Alisa Ganiyeva, an influential member of Moscow's literary circles, told The Daily Beast. "And Lyubov Sobol is a vivid example of a woman's significant transformation from a lawyer, an assistant into an independent political figure and influencer." Navalny's family is now with him in Germany, where doctors believe Putin's nemesis has been poisoned with the military-grade Novichok nerve agent.While he recovers in hospital, the political battles around Navalny's poisoning continue. The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee is calling for President Trump to investigate Navalny's poisoning. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is demanding Russian authorities "investigate this crime to the last detail and do so in full transparency."Before the poisoning, French President Emmanuel Macron was planning to reset relations with the Kremlin and visit Moscow. Those plans are now reportedly under threat.Moscow denies there was a poisoning and the foreign ministry has complained about Germany's "unfounded allegations and ultimatums."In the future, Sobol thinks, Russia should move away from having a single all-powerful leader. "It is important to understand that both Russians and Belarusians are tired of authoritarian leaders. People organize protests and movements on the horizontal level," she said. "Only this summer, we saw giant rallies in the Russian Far East, in Khabarovsk and in Bashkiria—activists realized that their leaders get arrested or attacked, so communities organize, communicate on social media, and plan strategies and rallies."Police often raid Navalny's anti-corruption group, and confiscate office and film equipment. Sobol says she spends all her spare money on fines for organizing rallies. She and her colleagues get arrested every few months, and now they have seen their boss attacked with a chemical weapon.And yet still Sobol stepped forward to fill Navalny's position as the face of the opposition. "We, Navalny's team, are like water: They squash us in Moscow, we open headquarters all across Russia. They arrest some of us, others immediately fill the gaps," Sobol said."I am never going to escape abroad—people recognize me in the streets. I am in charge of YouTube channels watched by more than six million people. And I am planning to run for Parliament next year."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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| With dozens missing in possible 'mass fatality incident,' Oregon struggles to combat wildfires Posted: 12 Sep 2020 02:46 PM PDT  Oregonians use shovels, buckets and garden hoses on wildfires as Gov. Kate Brown seeks more firefighters from the federal government and other states.
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| A top disease expert is warning of 'another 12 to 14 months of a really hard road ahead of us,' and says the US has no national plan to stop it Posted: 13 Sep 2020 09:53 AM PDT  Osterholm doubled down on Dr. Anthony Fauci's warning that Americans should expect to "hunker down" this fall and winter.
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| Trump claims during Nevada campaign rally that Democrats are trying to 'rig' upcoming election Posted: 12 Sep 2020 09:59 PM PDT  Donald Trump is on a three-day campaign swing through the West as he looks to expand the electoral map against Democrat Joe Biden.
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| Transcript: Governor Kate Brown on "Face the Nation" Posted: 13 Sep 2020 08:09 AM PDT  The following is a transcript of an interview with Oregon Governor Kate Brown that aired Sunday, September 13, 2020, on "Face the Nation."
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| Victory for religious liberty: Chick-fil-A to be offered lease in San Antonio airport Posted: 13 Sep 2020 04:09 AM PDT  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joins 'Fox & Friends' with reaction.
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| Parents in Tennessee are suing their school district for enforcing mask mandate Posted: 13 Sep 2020 01:52 PM PDT  The lawsuit claims that the mandate is denying equal education opportunities to students who will not wear masks.
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| Pressure mounts on foreign media in China after evacuation of Australian reporters Posted: 11 Sep 2020 10:22 PM PDT  Michael Smith, a reporter for an Australian newspaper, was jolted from his sleep in his Shanghai apartment last week by six state intelligence officers who questioned him under a bright spotlight. Almost 800 miles away Beijing, meanwhile, as drinks flowed in the middle of a party at his flat, Bill Birtles, correspondent for Australia's state broadcaster, received an almost identical visit. The message from authorities was the same: pack your bags. Details were sketchy but Mr Smith and Mr Birtles were now 'persons of interest' in a case and were subject to an exit ban. The reality is more nuanced. The Australian pair had become the latest journalists to be swept up in the growing animosity between China and the West – casualties of a spiralling row that is now rapidly closing our window into a rising global superpower. A collapse in cordial relations has triggered expulsions of a group of US journalists too and sewed a culture of fear among the shrinking number of foreign reporters left inside. Recalling his interrogation, Mr Smith wrote: "I wondered if ... I was about to be 'disappeared' to one of China's notorious black jails."
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| Wildfires are striking closer and closer to cities. We know how this will end Posted: 12 Sep 2020 03:22 AM PDT  The climate crisis is a factor, but so are efforts to fight fires - which have had the opposite effect We call them wildfires, but that might not be the right word any more.In recent days, at least five whole towns have been destroyed by fire in Oregon. So has much of Malden, Washington, and swathes of Big Creek and Berry Creek, both in California.To many people this will seem like deja vu. In 2018, another town was also wiped off the map, in the most dramatic recent example of this horrible genre. Paradise, California, was much larger, home to 27,000, and it was destroyed in just a few hours. Eighty-five people were killed.The places now being ravaged are not forests or chaparral located somewhere out there, in the wilds. Instead the current wildfires demonstrate how easy it has become for fires to invade our suburbs and towns, with their 7-11s, gas stations and doctors' offices, and lay them to waste. Where will this end? The prospects are disturbing.To understand how we got here, it is important to know that we have come to expect control over such conflagrations relatively recently. Prior to European settlement in the West, fire flowed freely, sparked by lightning or intentionally by Native Americans to encourage the growth of favored plants or clear areas for easier hunting. As much as 4.5m acres of California's 105m acres might burn every year. These low-intensity fires did not kill large trees, and some plants even came to depend on fire to regenerate themselves. A shrub called chamise appears to encourage fire by releasing combustible gases in the presence of flames.The shift to a different approach occurred after several instances in which wildfires became appalling urban fires. In October 1871, railway workers sparked a brush fire in northern Wisconsin, which swept into the city of Peshtigo and killed 1,500 people there and elsewhere across a gargantuan footprint of 1.2 million acres. And in the great fires of 1910, fires burning across several Western states killed hundreds and razed a number of towns. People escaped by train as the fires virtually licked at their heels.After this the US sought to suppress all wildfires before they could gain a foothold. In the 1930s, the US Forest Service instituted its so-called 10am policy, according to which fires had to be stamped out by that time the next day. Later came the "10-acre policy", dictating that fires should not be permitted to grow beyond that size. Fire was the enemy, an idea catalyzed by wartime imagery of firebombed cities such as Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo. Smokey Bear helped to reinforce it, too.This strategy had a pronounced effect – though not necessarily in ways that were intended. Fire activity decreased, it is true, but with scouring flames removed from the environment, forests grew far denser and brushier than they had been before. In one Arizona forest, 20 trees per acre became 800 trees per acre. These forests can and will burn more severely. In addition the climate crisis is rendering vegetation ever drier, and by 2050 up to three times more acreage in Western forests will burn as a result of global warming. Meanwhile 60m homes can now be found in or close to high-risk areas where wildfires have previously burned.Cue urban fires. The fire that obliterated Paradise on the morning of November 8, 2018 was sparked in a rural river canyon several miles to the east of town. As we describe in our new book, Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy, it approached the community at speeds previously thought impossible, chewing through almost 400 American football fields' worth of vegetation per minute. It hit like a hurricane. Strikingly, many of the hundreds of thousands of trees in the town were spared – it was the homes that became matches setting fire to the next. The fire was so quick, so hot, that people died seeking shelter under their cars, in the driveways of their homes while holding a hose, or huddled in their bathtub.Lincoln Bramwell, the chief historian of the US Forest Service, told us that the story of Paradise "reads like these accounts from the late 19th century", of fires like Peshtigo, back before we had sought to bring wildfire under our command. "I see us going back to the future," he added. "Going back to a time when fire was not under our control."As Americans in California, Washington and Oregon are discovering, wildfires do not only impact the wilderness. Towns and suburbs are not inviolate. With so many of our Western paradises now under threat, experts are begging us to bring controlled fire back into the ecosystem in the form of prescribed burns. To ensure buildings meet stringent fire codes. And to prepare city evacuation plans so we do not repeat the gridlock in which many of those escaping Paradise were trapped. We must, it almost goes without saying, get a handle on the climate crisis.Witnessing the urban fire in Paradise, some of those we interviewed for our book no longer thought it fanciful that a fire that could maraud into the very heart of a major city, such as Los Angeles, San Diego or the communities of the San Francisco Bay.University of California scientist Faith Kearns recounted to us that she lives in the Berkeley flatlands, in a part of the Bay that is as thoroughly urbanized as can be. Suddenly she was considering the prospect that a fire might one day reach her home."My neighborhood is full of Victorians. My neighbor's window is about six feet away from my own…" she said, pausing in thought. "I think we'll see it. I think we'll see it." * Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano are the authors of Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy, available from WW Norton. Read an excerpt here
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| Chinese-American students fire back at Republican Senate nominee's 'disrespectful' claim that they're pawns in a vast communist plot Posted: 13 Sep 2020 05:20 AM PDT  "Just because I'm Chinese-American, is he saying that it makes me dangerous because of that connection to China," one student asked Insider.
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| Australian optometrist suspended for altering prescriptions Posted: 13 Sep 2020 03:58 AM PDT  The Australian optometrist is found to have altered over 400 prescriptions, undermining a colleague.
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| Trump signs new, expanded executive order to lower U.S. drug prices Posted: 13 Sep 2020 12:14 PM PDT  President Donald Trump signed a new executive order on Sunday aimed at lowering drug prices in the United States by linking them to those of other nations and expanding the scope of a July action. The latest step, coming less than two months before the Nov. 3 presidential election, would replace a July 24 Trump executive order. It extends the mandate to prescription drugs available at a pharmacy, which are covered under Medicare Part D. The July version focused on drugs typically administered in doctors' offices and health clinics, covered by Medicare Part B.
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| 'Inhuman acts' expose suffering on bottom rung of India's 'inclusive nationalism' Posted: 13 Sep 2020 01:30 AM PDT  "Educated Dalits are no longer meek," independent legislator Jignesh Mevani said. "They are organizing and demanding their due."
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| Amid looming fee increases, Miami Citizenship Week strives to boost naturalization Posted: 12 Sep 2020 09:34 AM PDT  This has been a challenging year for immigrants seeking to complete the citizenship process.
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| Protest in Istanbul against Charlie Hebdo cartoons Posted: 13 Sep 2020 09:23 AM PDT  Around 200 people in Istanbul demonstrated on Sunday against a French magazine's decision to republish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
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