| Howard Dean says enthusiasm for Biden doesn't matter because voters have 'had it' with Trump Posted: 17 Aug 2020 02:38 PM PDT  Regardless of what happens at the Democratic National Convention this week, Howard Dean said he has no doubt that Democrats will vote in high numbers this fall during the presidential election.
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| Former CIA officer charged with giving China classified info Posted: 17 Aug 2020 01:33 PM PDT |
| House Democrats consider new push on coronavirus relief Posted: 18 Aug 2020 07:14 AM PDT  With the House returning to deal with Postal Service funding, some Democrats are concerned about the stalemate over a bigger pandemic package.
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| Airlines and airports to push for COVID-19 testing instead of quarantines Posted: 18 Aug 2020 06:22 AM PDT  Airlines and airports will ask a U.N.-led task force meeting on Tuesday to recommend that countries accept a negative COVID-19 test within 48 hours of travel as an alternative to quarantine for travelers.
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| De Blasio’s Wife Employs Six Undisclosed Taxpayer-Funded Staffers: Report Posted: 18 Aug 2020 07:19 AM PDT  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, employs at least six staffers whose salaries are paid by taxpayers but are not listed on her official staff roster.The city's first lady's office officially includes eight staffers who all together receive a collective $1.1 million in salaries, The City reported. However, McCray's staff numbered a total of 15 people for much of this year, but the recent departure of a staff member brought the total down to 14 people.The unlisted staffers include several who make six-figure salaries, including communications advisor Felicia Lee, whose $140,000 salary is paid by New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and director of policy Grace Choi, who makes $130,000 paid by the city's Department of Social Services. A social media manager whose salary is paid by the city's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, as well as two other low-level staffers paid by the mayor's office, were also not listed on McCray's official staff roster. A second speechwriter was also put on a different payroll.Additionally, McCray in February hired a videographer with a $70,000 salary that was paid by the Department of Health. The videographer filmed her "Baking with the First Lady" clip that was posted in April as the pandemic ripped through New York City and residents observed stay at home orders.McCray, who has said she is considering running for Brooklyn borough president, is a highly involved volunteer for New York City and is not paid by the government. She runs the ThriveNYC program, which works to enhance mental health services for New Yorkers.The news of McCray's undisclosed staffers comes as her husband's administration prepares to lay off 22,000 city workers in October due to the fiscal crisis in the city caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
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| Notre Dame's president insisted in-person classes were 'worth the risk.' A week into the semester, they're shutting down. Posted: 18 Aug 2020 03:55 PM PDT  The University of Notre Dame has canceled all its classes amid an outbreak of coronavirus just a week after students returned to class.In-person classes will be shut down for the next two weeks, and possibly for the rest of the semester, the university's President Rev. John Jenkins announced Tuesday. The abrupt change came after 80 students tested positive for COVID-19, and after Jenkins wrote an op-ed in May insisting it was "worth the risk" to bring them all back in the first place.Before classes restarted Aug. 10 at the South Bend, Indiana, school, all of its 12,000 students were tested for COVID-19. Just 33 of them tested positive. But as of Monday, another 418 were tested for coronavirus, and 80 tested positive, with many of the new cases linked to an off-campus party. The school kept testing students with coronavirus symptoms, and of the 927 who were tested through the end of Monday, 147 had tested positive.That led Jenkins to shut down classes temporarily with the hopes "that we can get back to in-person instruction." But if the outbreak doesn't clear up in two weeks, students will have to go home and learn remotely for the rest of the semester. That possibility will mark a defeat for Jenkins, who insisted in his New York Times op-ed that students would be returning to campus in the fall. "The good of educating students and continuing vital research is very much worth the remaining risk" of the coronavirus pandemic, Jenkins wrote, a belief he stuck by even though the pandemic worsened in Indiana after the article was published.More stories from theweek.com TV networks are reportedly afraid of giving the RNC too much airtime, so they cut the DNC's time short too Bill Clinton is getting sidelined at the DNC Cuba Gooding Jr. accused of rape in lawsuit
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| Hikers horrified as teen slips, plunges off rocks in South Dakota, officials say Posted: 17 Aug 2020 12:12 PM PDT  Video shows hikers screaming as the teen tumbles from Falling Rock.
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| Arizona Teachers Waged a Sickout Over Coronavirus Concerns, and Organizers Say Other School Districts Could Be Next Posted: 18 Aug 2020 01:40 PM PDT  As some politicians and parents pressure schools to reopen, teachers are pushing back.
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| Jared Kushner says 'yes,' the US coronavirus death toll of 170,000 is a 'success story,' doubling down on comments from April Posted: 17 Aug 2020 04:25 PM PDT  When asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer if 170,000 coronavirus deaths in the US are a "success story," Jared Kushner immediately responded "Yes."
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| TV networks are reportedly afraid of giving the RNC too much airtime, so they cut the DNC's time short too Posted: 18 Aug 2020 02:22 PM PDT  Major broadcasters only offered the Democratic National Convention an hour of airtime for a different reason than they usually do, The Daily Beast reports.Most presidential election years, TV networks limit the parties' conventions' airtime to an hour, saying viewers would lose interest if they were longer. But this year, they told Democrats they could only have an hour of airtime because they feared giving Republicans more time than that, multiple sources told The Daily Beast.Democratic officials recently met with broadcast executives to discuss their plans for airing this year's DNC. "The executives stressed that they could not broadcast two hours each night in part because they then would have to give the same airtime to [President] Trump," The Daily Beast writes. "We don't know what that content is going to be," one executive reportedly told the Democrats.At the time of the meetings, Democrats were able to show executives exactly who would be speaking each night at their virtual convention. Meanwhile the Republican National Convention schedule is still up in the air, at least publicly.Regardless of the time limit, the first night of this year's DNC had a far lower viewership than 2016's. About 26 million people tuned in last election, while just 18.7 million did Monday night, according to Nielsen.More stories from theweek.com Bill Clinton is getting sidelined at the DNC Cuba Gooding Jr. accused of rape in lawsuit Bipartisan Senate committee strongly implies Trump lied to Mueller
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| Virginia to consider reducing penalty for assaulting police Posted: 17 Aug 2020 12:40 PM PDT |
| The Trump-Administration Reforms Obama’s Misguided Methane-Emissions Rule Posted: 18 Aug 2020 03:30 AM PDT  Let the hysteria begin. The Trump administration has finalized a reform of the federal rules on emissions of methane, the major component of natural gas, from oil and gas production. The existing rules were implemented by the Obama administration in 2016, justified largely as a means of addressing anthropogenic climate change. That justification is deeply dubious, but any relaxation of such regulations is unacceptable to an environmental Left ideologically opposed to fossil fuels. And so an inexorable avalanche of criticism and litigation from the usual suspects is upon us, all of which will ignore several central truths.First: Neither the Obama rule nor the proposed reform would have any detectable effect on temperatures or climate phenomena over the remainder of this century. (Climate projections beyond 2100 are not to be taken seriously.) Total U.S. methane emissions in 2018 (635 million metric tons in CO2 equivalents) were 9.5 percent of all U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, and about 1.2 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions. Suppose that U.S. methane emissions were to be eliminated completely. If we apply the EPA climate model, which is based on assumptions that exaggerate the effects of reduced emissions, global temperatures would be about 0.012° Celsius lower than otherwise would be the case by the year 2100. If we apply assumptions more consistent with the modern peer-reviewed literature, that predicted effect becomes even smaller — about 0.005° Celsius. If a complete elimination of methane emissions would have a such a trivial effect, the effect of the Obama rule would be even less significant.The rule's effect on sea levels and other climate parameters similarly would be undetectable. As temperatures rise, driven by some combination of natural and anthropogenic causes, most climate models predict ancillary effects on sea levels, cyclones, and other phenomena; the commonly asserted seriousness of those effects ("existential threat!") is not supported by the evidence. The Obama administration claimed that the rule would reduce annual methane emissions by 11 million metric tons, or about 1.7 percent of annual U.S. methane emissions, by 2025 — again, a number too small to have an effect on climate phenomena. In short, the rule cannot satisfy any plausible cost/benefit analysis; the justification used by its backers — that it would be an effective way of addressing anthropogenic climate change — is inconsistent with basic climate science.Second: The Obama rule and the Trump reform apply only to U.S. oil and gas production and transport systems, which account for about 28 percent of U.S. methane emissions and about 2.6 percent of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. They do not apply to U.S. agriculture, which account for 40 percent of U.S. methane emissions and 3.8 percent of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.Agricultural methane emissions stem from enteric fermentation by livestock, manure management, rice production, composting, field burning of field residues, and other processes. The Trump reform recognizes the obvious: Even apart from the near-zero effect on the climate of methane emissions whatever their source, agricultural emissions are larger than those from fossil-fuel operations. But it would be much more difficult to reduce agricultural emissions; doing so would drive up the industry's costs significantly, and thus the prices that Americans pay for food. The costs to fossil-fuel operations of the Obama methane rule by contrast are hidden in a long supply chain comprising exploration, production, gathering and transport (including transport of crude oil and refined products from overseas), refining, distribution, imports, and so on, while the adverse price effects can be blamed on the evil oil companies.All this helps to explain the refusal of one Congress after another to target methane emissions — or greenhouse-gas emissions more generally — through legislation. Political support for such policies is nonexistent outside the environmental Left, which is why the Obama administration resorted to executive-branch regulation to enact them.Third: The Obama rule largely overlapped with the existing regulation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted as a result of fossil-fuel companies' operations. VOCs contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone, a problem very different from the climate-change rationale used to justify the methane rule. Regulations directed at the reduction of VOC emissions have the natural ancillary effect of reducing methane emissions as well, a reality recognized by the Obama administration itself. For the reasons already discussed, these ancillary effects are so small as to be irrelevant in terms of climate phenomena, and the Trump administration is not proposing a relaxation of the regulations reducing VOC emissions in any event.Note that only about a quarter of U.S. VOC emissions result from industrial and other economic activities; about 70 percent are from biological ("biogenic") sources. Most of the emissions from economic activities result from "other industrial processes," defined by the EPA as "chemical production, petroleum refining, metals production, and processes other than fuel combustion." Between 1990 and 2014, the most recent period for which the EPA has reported data, non-biological VOC emissions have declined 47 percent, and VOC emissions from "other industrial processes" have declined about 26 percent. This is largely consistent with the 18 percent decline in U.S. methane emissions from 1990 to 2018. The correlation means that the Obama methane rule was redundant, imposing costs on fossil-fuel production without providing any benefits.Why is it that methane emissions from fossil-fuel operations have declined about 23 percent since 1990, despite an increase in oil production of 49 percent, and an increase in gas production of 72 percent? Notwithstanding the assertions of the environmental Left, a reduction in methane emissions furthers the industry's interests, because methane is valuable; from the viewpoint of a profit-seeking fossil-fuel producer, sales are vastly preferable to losses through emissions. The interests of the private sector and environmental protection are far more consistent than commonly asserted, a reality that no one should be allowed to obscure.
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| An 82-year-old Texas man waited more than a week for his heart medication to arrive, thanks to USPS delays Posted: 17 Aug 2020 02:01 PM PDT  Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has agreed to testify next week before the House Oversight Committee about his cost-cutting measures at the USPS.
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| Savannah Chrisley reveals she's set to undergo 3rd endometriosis surgery Posted: 17 Aug 2020 06:48 PM PDT  "I'm insanely self conscious and just feel like my body has given up on me," Chrisley said.
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| These states require travelers to self-quarantine or present negative COVID-19 test Posted: 18 Aug 2020 02:30 PM PDT  States are opening back up, but some still require or recommend visitors self-quarantine for two weeks. Find out where.
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| Right-wing militia pulls out of event with New Mexico Republicans, citing 'blatantly racist' remarks from some speakers Posted: 17 Aug 2020 08:42 PM PDT  The New Mexico Civil Guard, whose founder is a neo-Confederate with a swastika tattoo, said it does not want to
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| First night of virtual Democratic convention draws 19.7 million viewers on 10 U.S. TV networks Posted: 18 Aug 2020 11:55 AM PDT  Former first lady Michelle Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders, a former presidential contender, were among the key speakers rallying support for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris. Obama and Sanders also spoke on the first night of the 2016 convention, which nominated Hillary Clinton for president.
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| As Democrats celebrate at convention, they're losing the money race in key state contests Posted: 17 Aug 2020 12:15 AM PDT  Democrats' future for the next decade hinges on whether they invest aggressively in state legislative races in Texas, Florida and North Carolina.
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| NYC mayor to move 13,000 homeless out of Manhattan hotels after residents' complaints Posted: 18 Aug 2020 09:17 AM PDT  Thousands of homeless in New York who had been given rooms at vacant hotels during the coronavirus outbreak are to be moved following complaints from residents. Bill de Blasio, the city's mayor, launched a program which saw the government pay 139 empty hotels to house some 13,000 homeless for $175 (£132) per person per night, to avoid Covid-19 outbreaks in overcrowded homeless shelters. However, local residents of Manhattan's Chelsea and the Upper West Side neighbourhoods say the decision has made streets more dangerous, complaining that intoxicated men are congregating on the street without masks, using drugs in public and getting into violent disputes. Others have reported incidents of assault and public exposure. "We see people inebriated, there are registered sex offenders," Alison Morpurgo, a member of the group Upper West Siders for Safer Streets, told NBC New York. "Sometimes I go running in the morning and I'll see needles on the ground," said the mother-of-three.
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| Falklands or Malvinas? Posted: 18 Aug 2020 03:30 AM PDT  On August 4, Argentina, the world's biggest deadbeat, announced that it had reached a deal with its creditors on its $65 billion worth of defaulted debt. The next day, the United Nations Decolonization Committee — the C24 — unanimously passed a resolution urging the United Kingdom and Argentina to resolve their differences over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. Or, are they the Malvinas?For 187 years, the United Kingdom has controlled the Falkland Islands, a small archipelago off the coast of Argentina populated by 3,480 Falklanders. Argentina claims that the Falklands are part of Argentina and, in fact, are not even the Falklands, but the Malvinas. These claims have resulted in the U.K. and Argentina coming to blows. In 1982, the Argentines met their match in the person of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady was in no mood to be pushed around by Argentina. After being challenged by Argentina, she sent part of the British fleet down to the Falklands for a ten-week undeclared war that resulted in 900 casualties. In the end, the Falklands remained the Falklands.With the swearing in of President Alberto Fernandez on December 10, 2019, it became clear that Argentina would once again attempt to seize control of the territory. Indeed, Fernandez formally established the National Council of Affairs Relating to the Malvinas, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces on July 28. Its goal: to establish territorial control of the Falkland Islands for Argentina, once and for all.Just what advantages do the Falkland Islands provide Argentina? Admittedly, since the "war," the Islands' small population diversified its economy away from its traditional (and unsatisfactory) dependence on sheep farming and British subsidies into fishing, thanks to a massive expansion in the Islands' fishing rights in 1986. Fishing now makes up between 50-60 percent of total GDP, and a tourism industry has developed. Nevertheless, the Falklands still rely on communications and supplies from neighboring nations to survive, and its annual GDP is only about $370 million. That said, Britain maintains a strong military presence on the archipelago and has recently declared that its new "multi-role combat aircraft," the Typhoon, will be employed there for defensive purposes in the near future.So, it seems that Argentina is entangling itself in a fight against a superior military power over a territory that provides little economic value. This, however, is a superficial reading of reality. While patriotic, populist sentiments in Buenos Aires flare up from time to time as a distraction from Argentina's domestic economic problems, that is only part of the current story. The crux of the recent Argentine challenge is found beneath the surface of the sea.Oil exploration and the discovery of hydrocarbon reserves around the Falkland Islands have accelerated considerably since 2012. Oil companies from Britain and Argentina are now vying intensely for hydrocarbon control. In 2015, an Argentine judge ordered the seizure of goods and assets worth $156,432,000 belonging to British multinationals drilling in the Falkland Islands, claiming it an "unlawful assertion of jurisdiction over the Falkland Islands' continental shelf." In 2019, the Argentine government issued a stern warning to British drilling companies Rockhopper PLC and Premier Oil over drilling on the shelf, claiming that they were violating international law. The formation of the National Council of Affairs Relating to the Malvinas, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces is a clear reassertion by Argentina that the hydrocarbons and minerals of the Falkland Islands belong to Argentina in its own right.How should the conflicting claims over sovereignty and property rights be settled? Years ago, after the U.K–Argentina dust-up, Sir Alan Walters — Mrs. Thatcher's economic guru — and I developed a transparent market solution that bestowed voting rights upon the settlers of the Falkland Islands. This plan was delivered to Mrs. Thatcher by Sir Alan. We advocated a binding referendum in which qualified Falklanders would vote on whether to uphold the status quo (British rule) or to agree to an Argentine take-over. If the required super-majority of Falklanders (say, 80 percent) voted in favor of Argentine rule, the United Kingdom would peacefully transfer administration of the islands to the Argentine government. It's time for our proposal to be resurrected.Unlike the 2013 referendum, when Falklanders voted 1,513 to 3 in favor of remaining a U.K. overseas territory, the Walters-Hanke referendum would require compensation from Argentina to the Falklanders — who are English speakers and British by custom, institutions, and loyalties — should they choose to transfer sovereignty over their lands and resources to Argentina. The referendum would be designed so that Argentina would offer a cash incentive if the islanders voted in favor of Argentina's rule. Prior to the referendum, Argentina would deposit an amount (say, $20,000,000) in escrow in Swiss accounts for every person who can prove their Falkland Islands citizenship.If 80 percent of the Falklanders agreed to Argentine citizenship, Argentine sovereignty, and a name change from the Falklands to the Malvinas, the funds in escrow would be transferred directly to each Falklander. Since the archipelago has a population of roughly 3,480, the total escrowed amount would be $69.6 billion.The best way for the United Kingdom and Argentina to bury the hatchet about the Falklands is to embrace a market-based referendum in which the Falklanders themselves decide their own destiny.
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| A same-sex infuencer couple are running a 'donor sperm giveaway' on Instagram, and people don't know how to feel Posted: 17 Aug 2020 09:10 AM PDT  Wives Allie and Sam are giving their followers the chance to win "1 vial of donor sperm (of your choice)," with free shipping included.
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| Pelosi: Democrats willing to cut COVID-19 bill in half to get a deal Posted: 18 Aug 2020 02:41 PM PDT  U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday that Congressional Democrats are willing to cut their COVID-19 relief bill in half to get an agreement on new legislation with the White House and Republicans.
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| Hot, dry and dangerous: Firefighters are battling 29 wildfires across California amid triple-digit temperatures Posted: 17 Aug 2020 07:49 PM PDT  There are 29 active fires across the state as of Monday night, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
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| Virginia state senator faces felony charges after protesters topple Confederate statue Posted: 18 Aug 2020 09:19 AM PDT  Sen. Louise Lucas is among six others charged in the June incident.
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| Andrew Cuomo undercuts Democrats' message on coronavirus Posted: 17 Aug 2020 07:26 PM PDT  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo spoke during the first night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention Monday. As was expected, he attacked President Trump's abysmal performance on containing the coronavirus pandemic. Our "current federal government is dysfunctional and incompetent," he said, correctly.Unfortunately, Cuomo is perhaps the single least credible person in the entire country to make this criticism. As I have outlined in detail previously, Cuomo frittered away weeks bickering with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio while the virus was spreading like wildfire in the New York City metro area, only locking down his state after it was too late. And as we have since learned, his decision to force nursing homes to accept COVID-19 cases almost certainly caused thousands and thousands more infections and deaths.Though New York has since largely gotten the outbreak under control, Cuomo's initial performance was a world-historical catastrophe. His state has the second-highest rate of COVID-19 fatalities of any in the country (just behind New Jersey, which was essentially part of the same outbreak). If it were its own country New York would have by far the highest death rate in the world. In a sense, Governor Cuomo was right to say, "government matters and leadership matters." His record is an object lesson in what happens when that job is done poorly.More stories from theweek.com TV networks are reportedly afraid of giving the RNC too much airtime, so they cut the DNC's time short too Bill Clinton is getting sidelined at the DNC Cuba Gooding Jr. accused of rape in lawsuit
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| China threatens to retaliate against the UK for hosting 'anti-China forces' after Boris Johnson welcomed a pro-democracy activist who fled Hong Kong to escape arrest Posted: 18 Aug 2020 04:35 AM PDT  China's ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming said Boris Johnson's government would "severely harm" ties with Beijing if it hosted activist Sunny Cheung.
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| Mali's president resigns and dissolves parliament Posted: 18 Aug 2020 05:44 PM PDT  Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta steps down, after being detained by soldiers, state TV reports.
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| Missouri judge finds GOP redistricting measure misleading Posted: 17 Aug 2020 11:05 AM PDT |
| Poland's health minister resigns after virus response criticised Posted: 18 Aug 2020 06:30 AM PDT  Poland's Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski said on Tuesday he was resigning from his post, the second resignation in two days from the ministry, which has faced growing criticism for its handling of the coronavirus crisis. Szumowski's approach in the early stages of the pandemic made him Poland's most trusted politician in April, but his image has been dented by scandals surrounding the purchase of ventilators and masks. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki later on Tuesday said that he would announce the new health minister's name by the end of the week.
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| A man broke into an aquatic center in Arizona, got trapped in a water slide support pipe, and died before rescuers could get to him Posted: 18 Aug 2020 09:24 AM PDT  A 31-year-old man identified by the Scottsdale Police Department as Ryan Kelly died at Eldorado Aquatic and Fitness Center on Monday.
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| World's largest naval exercise sparks more friction between US and China Posted: 17 Aug 2020 03:14 AM PDT  The world's largest naval exercise begins off the coast of Hawaii on Monday as diplomatic tensions escalate between the US and its allies and China over Beijing's territorial ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region. Several countries participating in the joint exercises, billed by the US navy as strengthening alliances to "ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific" have raised concerns about China's attempts to assert its control over critical trade routes and waterways. They include Australia, Japan, the Philippines and India. The coronavirus pandemic has forced the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) event, hosted by the US Pacific Fleet, to scale down from 25 to 11 nations, about 20 ships and 5,300 personnel, and its drills, which will now only be conducted at sea, have been whittled down from the usual five weeks to two. However, the exercises have riled Beijing, which was not invited to participate, despite taking part in 2014 and 2016. China was disinvited in 2018 by the Trump administration which accused it of militarising disputed areas of the South China Sea.
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| 'You can't fix stupid' — Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro rips Kodak executives Posted: 17 Aug 2020 08:00 AM PDT  "What happened at Kodak was probably the dumbest decisions made by executives in corporate history," Navarro said.
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| Ex-admissions worker used student IDs to steal $84K in aid at TN college, feds say Posted: 17 Aug 2020 04:03 PM PDT  A student's missing refund check led investigators to 32-year-old Renauld Clayton, who worked in the admissions office at Tennessee State University.
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| 'How do you sleep at night?: Anderson Cooper rips MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell on COVID 'cure' claim Posted: 18 Aug 2020 04:04 PM PDT  Anderson Cooper tore into My Pillow founder Mike Lindell for touting an unproven drug as a potential "cure" for COVID-19.
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| Car-sized asteroid just made the closest fly-by of Earth on record Posted: 18 Aug 2020 02:16 PM PDT  Astronomers didn't even know about the asteroid until after it had already crossed our path.
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| North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly condemns pet ownership as a 'decadence' and orders dogs be confiscated Posted: 18 Aug 2020 08:51 AM PDT  The dogs are being put down, sent to zoos or sold to restaurants where dog meat is eaten, an unnamed source told South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.
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| Carter Page: Clinesmith guilty plea is 'tip of the iceberg' in FBI wrongdoing Posted: 18 Aug 2020 05:53 AM PDT  Former foreign policy adviser to President Trump Carter Page reviews what happened to him and talks about other FBI wrongdoing during his tenure with the administration. He says ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith's hearing is a 'turning point for justice in our country.'
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| Gun Safety Issues Helped Democrats Flip Virginia's General Assembly in 2019. Is Texas Next? Posted: 18 Aug 2020 10:50 AM PDT  'The pandemic has exacerbated this crisis'
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| South African farmers protest attacks Posted: 18 Aug 2020 12:27 PM PDT  Hundreds of farmers on tractors, excavators, harvesters, trucks or horses took to the streets of the small South African town of Mookgophong on Tuesday, protesting what they said was a spike in attacks on farms.
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| China Looks to Leverage Coronavirus Vaccine Access to Secure Strategic Concessions from Other Nations Posted: 18 Aug 2020 11:04 AM PDT  Top Beijing officials are promising certain countries, with whom they have strategic partnerships, early access to China's imminent coronavirus vaccines as they seek to repair their global image following criticism over their failure to contain the initial outbreak of the virus.The countries China is working with to produce vaccines and provide early access include Russia, Pakistan, the Phillippines, Brazil, and Indonesia. The details of China's negotiations with the countries remain unknown but are believed to be related to recognition of Beijing's territorial claims in the South China Sea.China's Foreign Ministry has struck a deal with the Philippines to provide them with priority access to a coronavirus vaccine developed in China, the Wall Street Journal reported.Meanwhile, China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd., which is ostensibly privately owned, has reached an agreement with Brazil and Indonesia to cooperate in producing hundreds of millions of doses of its vaccine for use in those countries.In Pakistan, the China National Pharmaceutical Group has agreed to conduct clinical trials in the country, and Pakistan will receive doses for about one-fifth of its 220 million population.Russia's health ministry must still approve a deal to produce a vaccine in Russia that was developed by China's military and the China-based CanSino Biologics Inc.Of the six global vaccine candidates in the final phases of clinical trials involving people, three are being developed in China. Last month, the U.S. began the world's largest vaccine study involving 30,000 volunteers, who will test doses of a vaccine developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna.China was swiftly criticized by the U.S., Britain, and other western countries for allowing the coronavirus outbreak which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan to spill across the country's borders and infect the rest of the world, causing a global pandemic.The pandemic damaged ongoing trade negotiations between the U.S. and China as the Trump administration laid the blame on Beijing for the global crisis."They could have stopped the plague. They could have stopped it. They didn't stop it," Trump said last month.
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| Russia jails anti-Kremlin activist over Putin mannequin stunt Posted: 18 Aug 2020 08:28 AM PDT |
| Chinese diplomats return from Houston consulate shut by US Posted: 17 Aug 2020 07:28 PM PDT  The staff of the Chinese consulate in Houston that was ordered shut by the U.S. government has returned to China. Wearing face masks because of the coronavirus pandemic, they were greeted on the tarmac by Foreign Minister Wang Yi after disembarking from a chartered Air China flight in Beijing on Monday night. "You have resolutely safeguarded the core interests, the dignity of the country and the legitimate rights of China's overseas institutions under very difficult, even dangerous, conditions," he said.
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| Trump claims he has ‘never heard of’ ex-Homeland Security chief who called him ‘terrifying’ and endorsed Biden Posted: 18 Aug 2020 07:44 AM PDT  Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that he has "never heard of" the former senior administration official who endorsed Joe Biden and called the president "terrifying".Miles Taylor, former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief of staff under Kirstjen Nielsen, became one of the highest-ranking former administration officials to endorse the president's rival on Monday, featuring in a scathing attack ad.
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| Son fakes own kidnapping in FaceTime call to trick his dad, Mississippi cops say Posted: 17 Aug 2020 02:21 PM PDT  He was tied up and had a gun pointed at his head, according to officials.
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| Tokyo installed see-through public toilets in a park to let people inspect their cleanliness before using them, at which point the glass turns opaque Posted: 18 Aug 2020 03:14 AM PDT  People can see through the colored "smart glass" when it's not in use. The glass then turns opaque when the door is locked.
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| Now a medical student, Louisiana man returns to the hospital where he was once a security guard Posted: 17 Aug 2020 10:32 PM PDT  Eleven years ago, Russell Ledet would attend classes at Southern University and A&M College in the day and then work as a security guard at Baton Rogue General Medical Center at night, studying organic chemistry during his breaks.Today, Ledet is a medical student working inside the hospital, and he hopes that his story will inspire young people who believe becoming a doctor is out of their reach. "I thought growing up only rich people go to college," Ledet told BBC News. After high school, the Louisiana native joined the Navy as "a way out," and he "started to realize that the world was more than where I was from."He enrolled at Southern University and A&M College in 2009, and took on the security guard job in order to support his growing family. After shadowing the hospital's chief surgery resident, he was motivated to continue his education, and earned his PhD in molecular oncology from New York University. In 2018, Ledet was accepted into the Tulane University School of Medicine, and earlier this year, launched The 15 White Coats organization with fellow students. Their motto is "Resilience is in Our DNA," and they want to help give a foundation to children of color planning careers in the medical field."Coming from where I come from, nobody tells you that you can do things in the world, you can make an impact," Ledet told BBC News. "If nobody tells you, you don't know. But now that I know, I can tell the kids." More stories from theweek.com TV networks are reportedly afraid of giving the RNC too much airtime, so they cut the DNC's time short too Bill Clinton is getting sidelined at the DNC Cuba Gooding Jr. accused of rape in lawsuit
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| Italian police hunt tourist who posed for selfie on Pompeii ruins Posted: 18 Aug 2020 04:30 AM PDT  Italian police are searching for a tourist who climbed on top of the ruins of Pompeii to take a selfie. Massimo Osanna, until recently the head of the archeological site and now director- general of Italy's heritage sites, called the young woman's behaviour "deplorable". Officials said she not only risked damaging the 2,000-year-old site but had also put herself in danger. Police are trying to identify the name, age and nationality of the woman from images she posted on social media as well as CCTV footage. She was also photographed by other tourists, who were appalled to see her clamber onto the ruins of Pompeii's thermal baths. If found and prosecuted, she faces a prison sentence of up to a year and a fine of up to €3,000 (£2,715). The visitor's behaviour prompted outrage among many Italians, who are wearily familiar with tourists treating their cultural heritage with a cavalier attitude, from skinny-dipping in Baroque fountains to clambering over classical statues. "It is never nice to wish ill towards someone but in this case it is impossible not to hope that the Carabinieri will identify her and apply the law severely," said an editorial in Corriere della Sera newspaper. Tourists are regularly caught chipping off bits of mosaic or pocketing lumps of masonry at Pompeii, which was buried by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in AD 79. Bad behaviour by tourists is not confined to the ancient Roman site. Two weeks ago, an Austrian tourist accidentally snapped off the toes of a 200-year-old sculpture after lounging on it for a photograph. Security video footage from a museum in Possagno in northern Italy showed the 50-year-old nonchalantly resting on the statue of a woman by the 18th century sculptor Antonio Canova before realising with embarrassment that he had broken its toes:
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