| CCTV shows suspects in fishing trip 'massacre' following victim into Florida dollar store Posted: 23 Jul 2020 10:32 AM PDT  CCTV footage from a Florida convenience store has shown the suspects arrested in connection with a fishing trip "massacre" in the same store as one of the victims just before they were murdered.
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| Virginia evicts Confederate monuments from its state Capitol Posted: 24 Jul 2020 05:00 AM PDT  Virginia has removed from its iconic state capitol the busts and a statue honoring Confederate generals and officials. Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, a Democrat, quietly ordered the Lee statue and busts of generals J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and others removed from the historic Old House Chamber.
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| Dr. Birx says 'we have to change our behavior now' as U.S. faces 'essentially three New Yorks' Posted: 24 Jul 2020 06:27 AM PDT  The White House's coronavirus task force coordinator is imploring Americans to change their behavior "now."Dr. Deborah Birx, response coordinator of President Trump's coronavirus task force, spoke to Today on Friday as new COVID-19 cases have continued to climb in the U.S. and especially in Texas, California, and Florida."I just want to make it clear to the American public: what we have right now are essentially three New Yorks with these three major states," Birx said. "And so we're really having to respond as an American people, and that's why you hear us calling for masks and increased social distancing to really stop the spread of this epidemic."New York was for a time the hardest-hit state in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic; its daily number of new COVID-19 cases has since fallen. California earlier this week surpassed New York as the state with the most reported coronavirus cases total, though its population is much larger, and New York has still reported more COVID-19 deaths. Texas and Florida have also faced surging COVID-19 cases in recent weeks.Birx described the nation's COVID-19 outbreak as "very serious," and speaking on Trump's recent decision to cancel the Florida portion of the Republican National Convention, she said this is an example of the kind of steps that are needed as the virus continues to spread."This is a signal to the American people: we have to change our behavior now before this virus completely moves back up through the north," she said. "We can do that, and we can do that as an American people." > White House task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx talks to @SavannahGuthrie about the rising coronavirus cases in states including Florida, Texas and California. > > "What we have right now are essentially three New Yorks with these three major states," she says. pic.twitter.com/mczzED47NX> > -- TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 24, 2020More stories from theweek.com Trump says he 'often' regrets his tweets The coming Republican power grab on the Supreme Court Why the possibility of Democrats winning back the Senate is looking stronger than ever
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| GOP relief bill has less unemployment aid and $20 billion for farmers Posted: 23 Jul 2020 02:04 PM PDT  The Republican coronavirus relief bill includes no local aid, smaller unemployment benefits and $20 billion for farmers.
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| Two of the ISIS terrorists dubbed the Beatles admit involvement in captivity of Kayla Mueller, James Foley Posted: 23 Jul 2020 01:00 PM PDT  In exclusive interviews, the two men, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, for the first time admitted their involvement in the captivity of Mueller.
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| Hong Kong lawmaker says, "I don't know how I can protect myself" Posted: 24 Jul 2020 06:37 AM PDT  "We were supposed to have rule of law. But now it's rule by law, or even rule by fear," pro-democracy legislator Tanya Chan told CBS News.
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| 'How long did you serve, Tucker?' Another woman who lost her legs in Iraq backs Tammy Duckworth over Carlson's snark Posted: 23 Jul 2020 07:26 AM PDT  Despite their heroic military careers, Tammy Duckworth, Marissa Strock and many more American women like them continue to endure indignities on the home front.
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| NASA will launch a balloon the size of a football stadium into the stratosphere Posted: 24 Jul 2020 08:47 AM PDT  NASA will launch a telescope named ASTHROS and a balloon the size of a football stadium so researchers can study the formation of stars.
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| The 5 Best Leaf Vacuums for Yard Cleanup Posted: 24 Jul 2020 12:15 PM PDT |
| 5 Seattle media outlets have to hand over their unpublished photos from a George Floyd protest to help police investigate suspected crimes, judge rules Posted: 24 Jul 2020 04:00 AM PDT  The Seattle Police Department subpoenaed five media outlets for their footage from a May 30 protest to aid its probe into alleged violence.
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| Court orders 4th sentencing for actress in 2010 fatal crash Posted: 24 Jul 2020 09:39 AM PDT  A former "Melrose Place" actress who has already served a sentence for a fatal drunken driving crash could go back to prison. The complicated legal history of the case against Amy Locane includes three sentences imposed by two judges, as well as numerous appeals. It stems from a crash in March 2010 that killed Helene Seeman and seriously injured her husband, Fred, as they turned into their driveway in Montgomery Township in central New Jersey.
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| Alabama prison officers ‘use cruel and unusual punishment’ on inmates, DOJ says Posted: 24 Jul 2020 07:15 AM PDT  Alabama prisons have used "cruel and unusual punishment" on inmates by allowing correctional officers to perform routine beatings, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said following an investigation."Our investigation found reasonable cause to believe that there is a pattern or practice of using excessive force against prisoners in Alabama's prisons for men," Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the department's Civil Rights Division said.
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| Fox News Doctor Fawns Over ‘Extremely Sharp’ Trump: Our ‘Interview Was a Cognitive Test’ Posted: 23 Jul 2020 08:19 AM PDT  The morning after his interview with President Donald Trump, which featured the president bizarrely playing out the cognitive test he purportedly aced, Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel gushed over Trump's "great" memory and how "extremely sharp" the president is.Speaking to Siegel on Wednesday, Trump once again boasted about his "perfect mark" on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which is administered to judge whether a patient is suffering dementia or cognitive decline. At one point, Trump attempted to prove how difficult the test's questions are by reenacting the memory recall portion."And then, 10 minutes, 15 minutes later, remember the first question, not the first but the tenth question? 'Give us that again,'" Trump exclaimed. "And you go 'person, woman, man, camera, TV.' If you get it in order, you get extra points!""They say, 'That is amazing. How did you do that?" he added. "I do it because I have, like, a good memory. Because I'm cognitively there."While the president appeared to be confused about when he took the test—simultaneously claiming it was "less than a year ago" and that former White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson, who left in 2018, set it up—Siegel applauded the president for remembering five words."In a sense, that interview was a cognitive test," Siegel said on Thursday's broadcast of Fox & Friends, the president's favorite morning show. "As you know, he is extremely sharp on every second.""And he did a test on TV where he basically, you know, went through how great his memory is," he added. "He talked about Putin, he talked about Chairman Xi. He said whatever you think of them, they are extremely sharp, and we need a leader that has that level of awareness and sharpness."In recent weeks, the president has devoted an inordinate amount of time boasting about "acing" the MoCA, demanding that former Vice President Joe Biden also take the cognitive test that Trump apparently last took more than two years ago. Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, meanwhile, pointed out to Trump that the exam's questions are meant to test cognitive impairment and are fairly easy."They have a picture and it says, 'What's that?' and it's an elephant," Wallace told the president in Sunday's interview. 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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| Senate GOP, White House reach tentative $1 trillion pact to break coronavirus aid logjam Posted: 23 Jul 2020 07:33 AM PDT  The latest talks show some signs of resolving intraparty clashes that have kept negotiations at a dead stop for weeks.
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| Tom Cotton Introduces Bill to Prohibit Federal Funding for Schools Using ‘1619 Project’ Curriculum Posted: 23 Jul 2020 12:26 PM PDT  Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) introduced a law on Thursday that would prohibit federal funding for schools that incorporate curriculum from the New York Times's "1619 Project."The 1619 Project, named after the year when colonists first brought slaves to the U.S., attempts to retell American history by emphasizing the importance of slavery in the country's earliest years. However, historians have criticized the project for basic "factual errors" and a " displacement of historical understanding by ideology." (One example of such an error in the project is the assertion that the colonies revolted from British rule in order to preserve slavery.)"The New York Times's 1619 Project is a racially divisive, revisionist account of history that denies the noble principles of freedom and equality on which our nation was founded," Cotton said in a statement. "Not a single cent of federal funding should go to indoctrinate young Americans with this left-wing garbage."According to Cotton, the bill would not affect federal funding allocated to low-income or special-needs students.The Times has announced plans to incorporate material from the project in public school curricula. Districts in several major cities including Chicago, Ill., and Washington, D.C., have adopted some of these materials.Writer Nikole Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize in April for her lead essay for the project.
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| Exclusive: More than 40 countries accuse North Korea of breaching U.N. sanctions Posted: 24 Jul 2020 08:21 AM PDT  More than 40 countries accused North Korea on Friday of illicitly breaching a United Nations cap on refined petroleum imports and called for an immediate halt to deliveries until the end of the year, according to a complaint seen by Reuters. The 15-member U.N. Security Council imposed an annual cap of 500,000 barrels in December 2017 in a bid to cut off fuel for North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. The complaint said North Korean vessels continue to conduct ship-to-ship transfers at sea "on a regular basis as the DPRK's primary means of importing refined petroleum."
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| 'A handshake is a handshake': Friends split $22M Powerball jackpot, honoring years-old agreement Posted: 23 Jul 2020 12:15 PM PDT  Tom Cook and Joe Feeney are splitting a $22 million jackpot after Cook bought the winning ticket in Wisconsin.
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| Astrophysicists published the largest 3D map of the universe ever made, filling in 11 billion years of history Posted: 24 Jul 2020 07:29 AM PDT  It's the most comprehensive 3D map of the cosmos to date, covering millions of galaxies and supermassive black holes.
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| India coronavirus: 14-year-old sexually assaulted at Delhi Covid-19 centre Posted: 23 Jul 2020 09:20 PM PDT  The accused and another man who allegedly filmed the incident have been arrested.
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| Pakistan returns 200-year-old temple to Sikhs in southwest Posted: 23 Jul 2020 05:40 AM PDT  A 200-year-old Sikh temple that served as a school for Muslim girls for seven decades was returned to the Sikh community in Quetta, enabling them to worship there for the first time in 73 years, officials said Thursday. The temple stood empty for a year or two when most Sikhs left Pakistan for neighboring India after the British partitioned the subcontinent into separate nations in 1947, following two centuries of colonial rule. Under the government's guardianship, a school was later set up in the temple building, which remained functional until recently, when Sikhs won a legal battle to have the property returned, temple custodian Govind Singh said.
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| 'This is not new, and that is the problem': AOC gives powerful speech against misogyny in response to being called a 'f***ing b****' by GOP lawmaker Posted: 23 Jul 2020 09:48 AM PDT  US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivered a speech condemning Republican lawmaker Ted Yoho, who has been accused of accosting the New York Democrat and calling her a "f***ing b***" on the steps of the House of Representatives.Speaking from the House floor on Thursday, she said that his language reflects a "culture of lack of impunity, of accepting of violence and violent language against women, and an entire structure of power against women" –including other abuses against her from Republican officials, including Donald Trump.
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| The coronavirus curves are starting to flatten — again. But complacency now could prove deadly. Posted: 23 Jul 2020 12:08 PM PDT  There's no evidence from the rest of the world that relying on people to behave themselves can actually suppress the coronavirus to a manageable level, as opposed to merely slowing its spread. So far, only lockdowns have done that.
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| US push for global alliance against China hampered by years of 'America first' Posted: 24 Jul 2020 10:28 AM PDT  Beijing is flexing its muscles on multiple fronts but Trump's retreat from world leadership leaves it ill-placed to helm a fightbackThe confrontation between the US and China is gathering pace with each passing week. In the past few days, the Chinese consulate in Houston has been shuttered amid allegations it was a spy hub, and the US mission in the south-western city of Chengdu was closed in retaliation, on similar grounds.The FBI has started arresting Chinese researchers at US universities with suspected links to the People's Liberation Army (PLA), one of whom temporarily took refuge in the consulate in San Francisco, before surrendering.US academics and businessmen are being put under greater scrutiny for ties to Beijing and have been warned to come clean about them under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.The tougher legal moves have been accompanied by a concerted set of speeches assailing China by the Trump administration's major national security and foreign policy officials, culminating in an address on Thursday by the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, declaring: "The free world must triumph over this new tyranny."Pompeo travelled to Yorba Linda, California, home of the Richard Nixon presidential library, to declare that the Republican president's historic opening to China in 1972 had begun an exercise in failure in east-west detente."The kind of engagement we have been pursuing has not brought the kind of change in China that President Nixon hoped to induce," Pompeo said. "The truth is that our policies – and those of other free nations – resurrected China's failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the international hands that fed it."Some of the grand geopolitical language can be put down to the importance of anti-China sentiment in Donald Trump's bid to salvage his presidency in the November election. And some of it is inspired by Pompeo's own efforts, increasingly at the expense of his day job, to position himself for a presidential run in 2024.But much of what Pompeo had to say will have global resonance thanks to Beijing's rising aggression on multiple fronts around the globe. At the same time as rounding up more than a million Muslim Uighurs in internment camps, the regime has quashed the liberties enjoyed by Hong Kong, taken over disputed atolls, reefs and shoals in the South China Sea and turned them into concrete redoubts, and conducted a dangerous land grab on its border with India.Pompeo argued that combatting the grip of the Chinese Communist party "is the mission of our time", a declaration likely to get heads nodding in large parts of Asia and the Pacific at least. But his claim, in his next breath, that "America is perfectly positioned to lead it" will ring hollow among many of Washington's bewildered allies.In their eyes, China has expanded in a vacuum left by the US retreat under the Trump administration into "America First" jingoism and unilateralism.One of Trump's first foreign policy moves was to pull the US out of negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed as an economic coalition to prevent China being able to dictate the terms of trade in the 21st century. US allies in the region went ahead anyway but it was severely weakened by the absence of the US administration, which sought instead to unpick existing trade arrangements with its partners.Similarly, the US effort to persuade China to join arms control negotiations would carry more weight on the world stage if the Trump administration had not walked out on three arms control agreements to date and is apparently in the process of jettisoning a fourth, the New Start agreement limiting US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons.The abrupt US departure from the World Health Organization in the midst of a pandemic, accompanied by a campaign of unsubstantiated allegations against its officials led by Pompeo, is also often cited by diplomats posted to Washington as an example of the US abdicating its global leadership role.The failure of governance evident in the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic – which has left the US as the biggest, most enduring hotspot, and Americans banned from travelling to much of the world – has also made it hard for US diplomats to cajole foreign governments into a common cause against China, without drawing pained smiles.The same could be said for the spectacle of unidentified and seemingly unaccountable paramilitary units making arrests in Portland. In terms of scale, it could not be more different from the mass incarceration of the Uighurs, but it is not a good look for a nation seeking to reclaim the mantle of leadership of the free world.It is a stroke of luck for US diplomacy that, at a time when it is at its weakest when trying to recruit allies, China is doing much of the job on its behalf.
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| San Diego shipyard inks $10 million contract for Bonhomme Richard firefighting and cleanup Posted: 23 Jul 2020 10:36 AM PDT  NASSCO San Diego will continue to aid cleanup through November.
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| Ukraine president demands swift probe after activist's house set ablaze Posted: 23 Jul 2020 11:26 AM PDT  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday called on law enforcement to find and punish those responsible for an arson attack on the family home of a prominent anticorruption activist known for criticising top officials and businessmen. Vitaliy Shabunin's house was hit by an explosion that triggered a fire in what his organisation called an assassination attempt and part of a sustained intimidation campaign to stop its activities. "The culprits must be found and punished," Zelenskiy said in a statement.
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| A professor retiring early amid outrage over racist, anti-feminist, and anti-mask tweets has been found dead in his home Posted: 24 Jul 2020 08:55 AM PDT  Mike Adams was found dead and alone around 2 p.m. on Thursday, and an investigation into his death has been launched.
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| Triple tropical trouble: Douglas, Gonzalo and Tropical Depression 8 threaten US, Caribbean Posted: 23 Jul 2020 02:03 PM PDT  Three storms are threatening havoc: Hurricane Douglas in the Pacific, tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Gonzalo in the Atlantic.
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| The millionaire Republicans campaigning to oust Trump Posted: 24 Jul 2020 06:30 AM PDT  A growing number of wealthy conservative Americans are hoping to oust President Trump in November's election.
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| German court convicts men over 2018 gang rape of 18-year-old Posted: 23 Jul 2020 05:28 AM PDT  The case, in which most of the 11 defendants were Syrian, added to tensions in Germany over migration. Prosecutors say the woman was offered an Ecstasy tablet in a disco in the southwestern city of Freiburg and her drink was spiked with an unknown substance, leaving her unable to fend off the assailants. The Freiburg state court convicted most of the defendants, who were aged 18 to 30 at the time of the time of the assault in October in 2018, of rape, news agency dpa reported.
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| Genetic impact of African slave trade revealed in DNA study Posted: 24 Jul 2020 01:20 PM PDT  The consequences of rape, maltreatment, disease and racism are revealed by the findings.
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| Ahead of hearing with big tech CEOs, Cicilline says a Biden presidency would lead to regulation next year Posted: 23 Jul 2020 02:00 AM PDT  A top Democrat leading an antitrust investigation into the nation's top technology companies said Wednesday his committee will release a report by the end of August with recommendations on legislation that Congress could pass into law as soon as next year.
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| Does Tucker Carlson hate America? Posted: 24 Jul 2020 04:51 AM PDT  Tucker Carlson is only capable of two facial expressions. One is a deeply furrowed brow that narrows his eyes to a point at which they almost disappear, not dissimilar to the face a child makes when they are hangry, or lost, or both. He uses this expression when he is describing the point of view of someone with whom he disagrees. The other is a wide-eyed look of pleading which sends his eyebrows rising at least an inch in the other direction. It is an expression meant to portray logic and reason, of why-do-you-hate-America indignity. He uses it chiefly when describing his own views and solutions to the problems facing the country.All of this is to say that if eyes are windows to the soul, Carlson's spirit is black and white. He is a binary man whose whole career has been defined by his opposition to, and his apparent hatred of, other people and ideas. And at a time when America is more polarised than ever, he is having a moment.
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| Pompeo: U.S. engagement with China has failed Posted: 23 Jul 2020 02:20 PM PDT  The secretary of state decried China as a dishonest global player and brutal domestic regime.
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| Mexican minister quits after clash over navy's anti-drugs role Posted: 23 Jul 2020 09:55 AM PDT  Mexico's communications and transportation minister said on Thursday he was resigning because he disagreed with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's decision to hand control of ports to the navy as the government seeks to curb drug trafficking. Anxious to stop chemicals used to make narcotics entering the country, Lopez Obrador wants the navy to oversee ports and customs facilities, a decision that the outgoing minister, Javier Jimenez Espriu, was not in agreement with. "We had a dispute that happens between free men," Lopez Obrador said in a video announcing Jimenez Espriu's exit.
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| 'Virtually the entire apparel industry' — from Gap to H&M to Adidas — are profiting from forced Uighur labor, activists say Posted: 23 Jul 2020 08:35 AM PDT  Vast swathes of the fashion industry complicit in China's mass repression of the Uighur Muslims, says a coalition for human rights groups.
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| With Siberia in flames, climate change hits home for Russia Posted: 23 Jul 2020 11:58 AM PDT |
| Fact check: Viral photo shows Obama, Fauci visiting NIH lab in 2014, not a 'Wuhan lab' in 2015 Posted: 23 Jul 2020 09:50 AM PDT  In social media posts, the photo has been taken out of context. It depicts Obama, Fauci and Sylvia Burwell visiting a U.S. lab in the D.C. area.
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| Chinese researcher charged with US visa fraud is in custody Posted: 24 Jul 2020 01:42 PM PDT  A Chinese researcher accused of concealing her ties to the Chinese military on a visa application she submitted so she could work in the U.S. was booked Friday into a Northern California jail and was expected to appear in federal court Monday. Sacramento County jail records show Juan Tang, 37, was being held on behalf of federal authorities after she was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service. The Justice Department on Thursday announced charges against Tang and three other scientists living in the U.S., saying they lied about their status as members of China's People's Liberation Army.
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| The Media Can’t Stop Misleading on Guns Posted: 23 Jul 2020 01:58 PM PDT  With the possible exception of religion, there is no issue in American political life that is as poorly covered as guns. At RealClearPolitics, John Lott reports that legacy media outlets often quite literally allow anti–Second Amendment activists to write their news stories on gun policy. Politico hasn't quite done that today, but . . . well, I'm not sure having reporters dutifully repackaging Everytown USA press releases is any better.Politico's piece is headlined "Blocked gun sales skyrocket amid coronavirus pandemic." I have been curious to find out how the anti–Second Amendment crowd would spin the recent spike in gun sales -- which has been especially concentrated among new owners and women -- and I now have my answer:> Internal FBI data reveal a jarring new stat: The number of people trying to buy guns who can't legally own them has skyrocketed. That came as part of a surge in gun purchases in the first three months of 2020, compared to the same time period in 2019. And the change has raised concerns about gun safety.Reporters who lard up their pieces with adjectives such as "jarring," "massive," "whopping," and "raised concerns" are usually trying to convince readers of something that isn't true. And so it is here. Indeed, all this Politico piece tells us is that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System is working exactly as intended.Groups such as Everytown spend a lot of time trying to convince Americans that their country doesn't have a background-check system at all. They're good at it, too; millions of voters seem to be under the impression that criminals can walk into a Walmart and walk out with an AR-15. And yet suddenly Everytown is upset that "jarring" numbers of people are being denied guns by the FBI. Isn't that the point of the system?And about those numbers . . . the piece goes on:> In March 2019, the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) ran background checks on 823,273 attempted gun buys (the system immediately greenlights the vast majority of transactions). This past March, however, NICS processed more than 1.4 million background checks — a massive spike. The most dramatic shift, though, might be in how many people the system blocked from buying guns.> > In March 2019 and February 2020, the NICS system blocked about 9,500 and 9,700, respectively. But in March 2020, it blocked more than double that amount: a whopping 23,692 gun sales.What these stats show is that very few prohibited Americans attempt to buy guns from dealers (this number is even lower than typically suggested, because many of them aren't attempting to hoodwink the FBI but are simply ignorant of the law), and that this is as true in 2020 as it was in 2019. The rejection rate in February 2019 was 0.6 percent and in February 2020 it was 0.68 percent. In March 2019, the rejection rate was 1.15 percent, and it was 1.64 percent in March 2020. As a 2019 Government Accountability Office report inidicates, the number of rejected applications has consistently been around 1 percent for years. Remaining around the historical average is neither "whopping," "jarring," nor "massive," despite the framing of the piece.The piece goes on:> NICS's website says it only blocks gun sales for a narrow number of reasons: because the would-be purchaser has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution, for instance, or because the potential buyer is subject to a restraining order for stalking an intimate partner.Actually, NICS says nothing of the sort on its website. Rather, it offers eleven rather broad grounds and circumstances in which a person can be denied a gun. We know they are broad because no other constitutional right has anything close to as many restrictions on it. I can assure you that if the FBI had eleven reasons to deny women abortions, Politico wouldn't be characterizing them as "narrow" constraints.Politico finishes off the short piece off by quoting a couple of completely baseless statements from Everytown president John Feinblatt:> "This FBI data confirms our fear that America's background check system is completely overwhelmed, which means that more guns are slipping through the cracks and being sold to prohibited purchasers," John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown, said in a statement. "Mitch McConnell can stop this by taking action to close the Charleston loophole, but he's too scared of the gun lobby's waning political power to do anything, even as gun violence rises in the midst of a pandemic."There is no evidence to bolster the assertion that the system is "completely overwhelmed" or that more people are "slipping through the cracks." In fact, the FBI spokesperson says in the piece that the NICS "has reallocated resources to address the incoming volume of NICS transactions."Also, there's no such thing as the "Charleston loophole." I realize that activists such as Feinblatt think every gun purchase in America reflects a "loophole" that needs to be closed, but the three-day waiting limit on checks was purposely written into the 1998 law -- which makes it the opposite of a loophole. The provision was added to the law to ensure that the FBI couldn't arbitrarily deny Americans their Second Amendment rights. The Charleston church shooter obtained his gun -- despite his drug use -- not because of problems with the law but because of a data-entry error. If that is distressing to Feinblatt and his organization, perhaps he should ask the Democratic House to stop ignoring FBI requests for more NICS funding.The simple truth is that these numbers reflect an established pattern: When gun purchases rise -- probably initially owing to the helplessness felt by many people during the COVID-19 lockdown, and later compounded by the lawlessness that erupted in big cities -- other numbers will rise with them. Ultimately, Feinblatt's objection isn't to more background checks; it's to more gun ownership. That's his job, so it's to be expected. But what's the media's excuse?
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| Trump's press secretary falsely claimed that children's cartoon 'Paw Patrol' was canceled due to anti-police sentiment Posted: 24 Jul 2020 02:33 PM PDT  White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed that "cancel culture" resulted in the cancelation of "Paw Patrol." The show says that is false.
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| Coronavirus: The week when everything changed for Trump Posted: 24 Jul 2020 03:49 PM PDT  The president underwent a series of U-turns in an effort to save his re-election chances.
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| Trump reverses Obama policy with huge Alaska goldmine despite outrage among environmental and indigenous groups Posted: 24 Jul 2020 10:32 AM PDT  The Trump administration is going to proceed with the development of the largest gold and copper mine in the country, a mine the Obama administration did not develop after learning it could permanently harm the region's sockeye salmon population.Pebble Mine, which would provide access to gold, copper and other minerals worth up to $500bn, would be built in Alaska over the Bristol Bay watershed, which is also the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery.
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| U.N. rights office urges U.S. to rein in police at protests Posted: 24 Jul 2020 02:32 AM PDT  U.S. police and security forces must not use disproportionate force against protesters and journalists in U.S. cities including Portland or detain them unlawfully, the United Nations human rights office said on Friday. Law enforcement officers and federal forces must be clearly identifiable so that they can be held to account for any incidents of abuse, it said. U.S. cities including Portland have been rocked by protests against racial injustice sparked by the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.
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| Miami's mayor asks people to wear face masks in their own homes to reduce the spread of coronavirus within families Posted: 24 Jul 2020 04:06 AM PDT  Miami Mayor Francis Suarez warned that the family home had become the largest source of COVID-19 cases in the badly hit state.
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| China pushes Huawei, Washington pulls another way Posted: 23 Jul 2020 10:57 AM PDT |
| Manson follower Leslie Van Houten could get parole Posted: 24 Jul 2020 03:32 AM PDT  Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten has been recommended for parole after serving nearly five decades in prison.
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| No masks, just questions, in Kansas counties with no cases Posted: 24 Jul 2020 12:57 PM PDT  Some businesses in two western Kansas counties that have yet to report a single positive coronavirus case aren't requiring customers to wear face masks — but they are asking whether they have traveled outside the county. Business owners in Rawlins and Wallace counties say they agree with local officials' decisions to opt out of an order from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly requiring people to wear masks in public. In Wallace County, which borders Colorado, one restaurant posted on social media a graphic of a crossed out man with a face mask.
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| Ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick ran sex ring for clerics at New Jersey beach home, lawsuit alleges Posted: 23 Jul 2020 11:10 AM PDT  A lawsuit accuses former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was defrocked last year, of running a sex ring for clerics at a NJ beach house.
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| Doctors are posting bikini selfies in protest of a study that said it is 'unprofessional' for female medics to share bikini photos online Posted: 24 Jul 2020 08:08 AM PDT  Three male researchers created fake social media profiles to collect photos of female doctors in bikinis for the 2019 study.
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| Florida tops 400,000 coronavirus cases after governor says state is moving in 'better direction' Posted: 24 Jul 2020 11:46 AM PDT  The somber milestone follows the U.S. topping 4 million confirmed coronavirus cases nationwide.
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