| Biden looks to engage Black men on issues — and rapper Jeezy approves Posted: 17 Sep 2020 03:44 PM PDT  Former Vice President Joe Biden is hoping that barbershop conversations will equate to an increase in voter turnout for the Democratic presidential nominee among Black men in November.
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| Texas police officer charged in death of Pamela Turner, a Black woman whose killing was captured on video Posted: 17 Sep 2020 02:53 PM PDT  A Texas police officer was indicted this week in the death of Pamela Turner, a Black woman who was killed outside her apartment more than a year ago.
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| Pentagon sending troops to Syria after clashes between U.S., Russian military Posted: 18 Sep 2020 12:38 PM PDT  The troops are meant to discourage Russians from crossing into the eastern area where U.S., coalition, and Syrian Democratic Forces operate, say officials.
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| Trump's club charged Secret Service agents $500 a night for rentals even when it was closed for the pandemic Posted: 18 Sep 2020 08:18 AM PDT  Taxpayers' bills for Trump Organization properties have surpassed $1.1 million, The Washington Post reports.As the Post has consistently reported via Secret Service bills, President Trump and his administration have repeatedly funneled government money to the family's properties throughout his term. That has included above-market rates for rentals that ensured Secret Service agents stayed close to Trump and, most recently, payments to one club that was closed for the COVID-19 pandemic, the Post's David Fahrenthold reports via the latest round of receipts and invoices.The coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the service industry this spring, including the Trump Organization's Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. But while the club was closed, it still charged the Secret Service more than $21,800 to stay on the property, the Post reports. That included $567-a-night charges for a three-bedroom cottage close to Trump's villa — an "unusually high for a rental home in the area," the Post writes. The invoices also detailed charges for one or two additional rooms, at $142 to $283 per night. Trump didn't visit the club during the pandemic, but his daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump did, The New York Times reported at the time.The newly obtained invoices also revealed that Trump's Turnberry resort in Scotland "once charged the Secret Service $1,300 to move furniture," and that the Trump Organization tacked on "resort fees" when agents were guarding Vice President Mike Pence in Las Vegas. Read more at The Washington Post.More stories from theweek.com How a productivity phenomenon explains the unraveling of America How the Trump-Russia story was buried The conservatives who want to undo the Enlightenment
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| Measures to control coronavirus have brought flu infections to 'historic lows.' Scientists want to keep it that way. Posted: 17 Sep 2020 11:22 AM PDT  Lockdowns and protective measures like the widespread wearing of face masks as a result of the coronavirus pandemic have driven influenza infections to record lows, according to a new CDC study.
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| Ireland tightens COVID-19 travel restrictions, angering airlines Posted: 17 Sep 2020 07:42 AM PDT  The Irish government on Thursday tightened its COVID-19 travel restrictions by imposing quarantines on travellers from major holiday markets Italy and Greece, angering the country's dominant airlines Ryanair and Aer Lingus. Aer Lingus said it was concerned by the fact the government had repeatedly indicated in recent weeks it planned to adopt a more liberal European Commission proposal, but instead cut back the number of countries exempt from quarantine. Ireland had initially waived quarantine for travellers from countries with lower COVID-19 rates, but as its 14-day infection rate surged to above 50 cases per 100,000, the government said only places half that rate would be exempt.
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| ‘He is doing his thing because he loves his wife’: Meet Kamala Harris’s husband Douglas Emhoff, who wants to be America’s first second husband Posted: 17 Sep 2020 03:41 AM PDT  Democratic vice presidential nominee is married with two stepchildren
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| A dentist who pulled someone's tooth while riding a hoverboard has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud and 'unlawful dental acts' Posted: 18 Sep 2020 12:34 PM PDT  In a 2016 video, the dentist rolls up to a sedated patient, pulls her tooth while standing on the hoverboard, and rolls away.
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| Woodward says Trump has 'lost his way, not just as a president but as a human being' Posted: 17 Sep 2020 12:11 PM PDT  In a wide-ranging live interview on the Yahoo News "Skullduggery" podcast Thursday, the "Rage" author said the president does not have the capacity "to assess what's real and what's unreal."
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| Man, woman who died in California fires didn't evacuate because of 'erroneous information' Posted: 16 Sep 2020 07:24 PM PDT  Fires ravaging California, Oregon and Washington have killed at least 34 people, destroyed thousands of homes and other structures and charred an area about the size of New Jersey.
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| Exclusive: Trump plans executive order to punish arms trade with Iran - sources Posted: 17 Sep 2020 07:45 PM PDT  U.S. President Donald Trump plans to issue an executive order allowing him to impose U.S. sanctions on anyone who violates a conventional arms embargo against Iran, four sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the executive order was expected to be issued in the coming days and would allow the president to punish violators with secondary sanctions, depriving them of access to the U.S. market. The proximate cause for the U.S. action is the impending expiry of a U.N. arms embargo on Iran and to warn foreign actors - U.S. entities are already barred from such trade - that if they buy or sell arms to Iran they will face U.S. sanctions.
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| Michelob Ultra is hiring someone to travel to national parks — for a hefty salary Posted: 17 Sep 2020 11:56 AM PDT  "Don't worry about gas money, that's on us."
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| He survived an Oregon wildfire by perching on a rock in a river, fending off embers with a chair Posted: 17 Sep 2020 10:53 AM PDT  Trapped in a canyon by downed trees and flames, an Oregon man survived on a rock in the middle of a river. He made time for a beer, too.
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| US carrier transits Strait of Hormuz amid tensions with Iran Posted: 18 Sep 2020 09:48 AM PDT  The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier safely transited on Friday through the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important chokepoint for oil shipments, the U.S. Navy said, as tensions with Iran continue to simmer. In a "scheduled" maneuver, the U.S. sent the carrier and several other warships through the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, according to the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th fleet. The Nimitz, America's oldest carrier in active service, carries some 5,000 sailors and Marines.
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| Coronavirus: Idaho pastor who called himself 'no-masker' in intensive care with Covid-19 Posted: 18 Sep 2020 10:36 AM PDT  'I want to encourage all of you to begin to regather this Sunday and let nothing hinder you from doing so,' says Paul Van Noy
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| Seven dead, dozens infected after 'superspreader' wedding in rural US Posted: 17 Sep 2020 11:31 PM PDT  A wedding in rural Maine became a coronavirus "superspreader" event that left seven people dead and 177 infected, renewing fear of the disease in the northeastern US state that had hoped the worst of the pandemic was behind it.
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| JPMorgan is reportedly no longer reimbursing junior traders taking Ubers to and from work as the bank orders staff back to the office Posted: 17 Sep 2020 08:35 AM PDT  As the bank plans to bring back employees on September 21, it's ending reimbursements for junior traders Ubering to the office.
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| Bay Area defendant in killing of Italian police officer apologizes Posted: 16 Sep 2020 08:30 PM PDT  "Many mistakes were made that night and mine were the biggest." One of the Bay Area defendants in the killing of an Italian police officer during a drug deal gone bad in Rome has apologized to the officer's family.
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| As Trump courts Black voters, critics see a 'depression strategy' Posted: 18 Sep 2020 03:57 PM PDT  While the president's team touts its efforts to court a community that Republicans have long ignored, critics describe them as part of a cynical "depression strategy" designed to minimize Black American turnout.
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| How a 'Hillbilly Brigade' saved an Oregon town from raging wildfires Posted: 17 Sep 2020 09:13 AM PDT  Nicole West steered her bulldozer through the smoldering forest, pushing logs into the underbrush and away from the wildfires ripping through Oregon's Cascade Mountains. Behind West, on the front lines of the 136,000-acre (55,000-hectare) Riverside fire, two young men pulled a water tank behind their pickup truck, struggling to douse the flames. In a year when ferocious wildfires have killed at least 34 people and burned millions of acres in Oregon, Washington and California, the brigade has pulled off a miracle in the thick forests around Molalla in recent days, residents and fire officials say.
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| ‘We’ve never seen a tumor this big,’ Florida Keys sea turtle rescuers say Posted: 18 Sep 2020 04:16 PM PDT  A loggerhead sea turtle with an enormous tumor the size of a basketball on its right flipper is scheduled to go into surgery to remove it Saturday at a renowned Florida Keys animal hospital.
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| Special Ops Plan to Buy New Light-Attack Fleet May Get Pushed Back Posted: 17 Sep 2020 09:58 AM PDT  The commander of AFSOC hasn't given up on buying aircraft for close-air support and precision strike.
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| GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn reveals she doesn’t know what an "Amendment" is — on Constitution Day Posted: 18 Sep 2020 02:22 AM PDT  "We will never rewrite the Constitution of the United States," she proudly and wrongly proclaimed on Twitter
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| Citigroup employee revealed as Qanon website operator is placed on leave Posted: 17 Sep 2020 04:26 PM PDT  Jason Gelinas was reportedly receiving $3,000 a month in crowdfunding to run the conspiracy theory website
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| Oracle will have to pore over the TikTok's source code to make sure there are no backdoors as part of its proposed deal Posted: 18 Sep 2020 06:17 AM PDT  TikTok and Oracle will need to convince the Trump administration their proposed deal will keep data secure.
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| Canada abandons free trade talks with China: minister Posted: 18 Sep 2020 09:26 AM PDT  Canada has walked away from free trade talks with China amid soured relations over a Huawei executive's arrest and the detention of two Canadians in apparent retaliation, foreign minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said in a newspaper interview Friday.
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| Pennsylvania Democrats notch key election-related court wins Posted: 17 Sep 2020 10:05 AM PDT  Pennsylvania's highest court gave the Democratic Party a series of victories Thursday in the presidential battleground state, relaxing deadlines in its fledgling mail-in voting law, approving more ballot collection sites and kicking the Green Party's presidential candidate off the November ballot. The state Supreme Court, which has a 5-2 Democratic majority, granted the Democratic Party's request to order an extension of Pennsylvania's Election Day deadline to count mailed-in ballots. The extension it granted, in a 4-3 decision, will allow three more days to receive ballots that were mailed before polls closed.
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| California's wildfire death toll rises as showers bolster crews in Oregon Posted: 18 Sep 2020 07:35 AM PDT  A firefighter has perished in a blaze that was ignited two weeks at a gender-reveal party, the U.S. Forest Service reported on Friday, as welcomed thundershowers brought some relief to weary fire crews in western Oregon. The firefighter's death on Thursday in the San Bernardino National Forest east of Los Angeles raised the death toll to at least 35 in the catastrophic spate of wildfires raging across the western United States in recent weeks. Twenty-six of those victims have died in California, including two other firefighters - a Forest Service contractor killed in a lightning-sparked fire in northern California, and a private helicopter pilot whose chopper crashed on a water-dropping mission in Fresno County last month.
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| Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration are set to deny funding to Connecticut schools over inclusive transgender athlete policies Posted: 18 Sep 2020 12:42 PM PDT  According to The New York Times, Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration are cutting funding to certain Connecticut schools over their participation in the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference. The conference allows transgender student-athletes to compete with, and against, athletes who share their gender identity, a course of action Trump's administration has repeatedly fought against. If the schools refuse to cut ties with the conference prior to October 1, the education department has vowed to withhold $18 million in desegregation grants.
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| Portland protesters burn Maga hats and guillotine giant teddy bear on eve of Trump convention Posted: 17 Sep 2020 01:46 AM PDT  More than 12 weeks on, and Portland's protests are only becoming more rancorous
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| Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Outsider’s Champion, Has Died at 87 Posted: 18 Sep 2020 04:34 PM PDT  Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court justice, trailblazing feminist, and the closest thing to a folk hero the high court has ever seen, has died at the age of 87. The Supreme Court announced that she died Friday due to complications from metastatic pancreas cancer.In a statement dictated to her granddaughter just days before her death, Ginsburg said, "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."Tributes began pouring in instantly. The chief justice, John Roberts, said in a statement that the country had lost "a jurist of historic stature.""We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her—a tireless and resolute champion of justice."How Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Became a Rock StarAlready the subject of two recent films and countless memes, "RBG" the pop-cultural icon has perhaps obscured Ginsburg's nearly unparalleled impact on the Supreme Court. Well before her "dissent collar," jabots, and other decorative apparel; before the fiery dissents that rivaled those of the late Justice Antonin Scalia; even before Ginsburg ascended to the court, her place in judicial history was already assured.Among 20th-century justices, only Thurgood Marshall played such a powerful role as an advocate—Marshall in cases involving racial equality, Ginsburg in those involving gender equality.From 1972, when she co-founded the ACLU's Women's Rights Project, until 1980 when she became a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Ginsburg altered the course of constitutional interpretation. She persuaded the Warren Court to extend the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause to women. In this nearly decade-long campaign, Ginsburg was as much canny strategist as outspoken advocate. In one landmark case, for example, she represented a widower, Stephen Wiesenfeld, who had been denied child care benefits because he was male. She won that case, which advanced the cause of gender equality—in part because it showed how gender discrimination hurt everyone, not just women.Notably, Ginsburg was already in her forties during this line of cases, because she herself had borne the brunt of discrimination against women. Born in 1933 to a moderately religious Jewish family in Brooklyn, Ruth Bader quickly distinguished herself, graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University, then attending Harvard Law School (famously, she was one of nine women in a class of about 500 students total), and transferring to Columbia Law School when her husband, Martin, took a job in New York City. She graduated first in her class.And yet, she was rejected from a prestigious Supreme Court clerkship, despite glowing recommendations, because she was a woman (she clerked for a district court in New York instead) and spent the '60s as a law professor at Rutgers, specializing primarily in the dry area of civil procedure. Only in the '70s did she find her true calling as a lawyer and professor focused on gender equality.In the '80s, Ginsburg earned a reputation—perhaps surprisingly, given her subsequent notoriety—as a meticulous, deliberate moderate. After being nominated to the Supreme Court in 1993, she was confirmed by the Senate 96-3, despite articulating clearly liberal positions on the constitutional right to privacy—the foundation of Roe v. Wade and other controversial cases—and gender equality. (The myth that Ginsburg was somehow evasive about these issues, as Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh were at their confirmation hearings, has no basis in reality.) Arguably, Ginsburg's latter-day reputation only began to take hold in the mid-2000s, as she dissented from rulings by an increasingly conservative Supreme Court. Had Ginsburg "found her voice," as New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse put it? Or had the Court simply moved so far to the right that Ginsburg's views, once mainstream, were now the subject of angry dissents? History will have to judge.There are ample materials on which to base such a judgment: dissents in cases on so-called "partial-birth" abortion (Gonzales v. Carhart, 2007), workplace discrimination against women (Ledbetter v. Goodyear, 2007), access to contraception (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 2014), and many others. "The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives," Ginsburg wrote in her Hobby Lobby dissent, sharply criticizing the Court's holding that a corporation could withhold insurance coverage for contraception if it (the corporation) had religious reasons for doing so. This was a lesson Ginsburg had learned herself. In 1956, she was demoted from her job at the Social Security Administration when she became pregnant. (When she became pregnant with her second child in 1965, she reportedly concealed her pregnancy with loose-fitting clothes.) And now the Supreme Court had decided that a corporation's religious freedom took precedence over women's access to contraception. Ginsburg called it a "decision of startling breadth."There were many such decisions in the last years of Ginsburg's career, as the Supreme Court upheld Donald Trump's unconscionable Muslim Ban, taking Trump at his word that it was actually a ban against various insecure countries; allowed a religious baker to turn away gay customers; and sharply curtailed voting rights across the country.In a 2018 interview, Justice Ginsburg said that her judicial philosophy had been shaped by her Jewish experience, in particular "the sense of being an outsider—of being one of the people who had suffered oppression for no sensible reason. It's the sense of being part of a minority. It makes you more empathetic to other people who are not insiders, who are outsiders."In an age of resurgent xenophobia, nationalism, and hate, such empathy is perhaps more crucial than ever. It is a value that ran through Ginsburg's articles, briefs, opinions, and dissents. More than any "notorious" pop-cultural ephemera, it will be sorely missed.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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| Trump will approve major disaster relief funding for Puerto Rico — 3 years after Hurricane Maria Posted: 18 Sep 2020 07:23 AM PDT  President Trump is finally getting around to approving aid for Puerto Ricans hit hard by Hurricane Maria — three years after the storm devastated the island.Trump will approve an $11.6 billion package orchestrated by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D-N.Y.), CBS News' David Begnaud first reported. The funding will go toward rebuilding Puerto Rico's power grid that was largely destroyed during the hurricane, leaving some people without power for nearly a year, as well as to the island's education systems.In a Thursday statement, Velasquez, who is from Puerto Rico and championed relief measures after Hurricane Maria, suggested Trump's motivations were largely political. Trump "dragged his feet and resisted allocating these badly needed funds" for the past three years, but "47 days before the election," seemed to have a change of heart, Velasquez said.> NOW: New York Congresswoman @NydiaVelazquez just released a statement saying the Trump administration "...dragged its feet and resisted allocating these badly needed funds..." she suggests the President's motivation is political "...forty-seven days before the election..." pic.twitter.com/awy810gZdK> > — David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) September 18, 2020The Los Angeles Times' Chris Megerian was more explicit. In a tweet, he noted that Puerto Ricans are a "key demographic" in Florida; the more than 1 million estimated Puerto Ricans in the swing state could easily push it and the entire presidential race in Trump's direction.More stories from theweek.com How a productivity phenomenon explains the unraveling of America How the Trump-Russia story was buried The conservatives who want to undo the Enlightenment
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| Noul turns deadly while making landfall in Vietnam Posted: 18 Sep 2020 03:13 AM PDT  Noul made landfall as a tropical storm in central Vietnam on Friday leading to at least one death, as reported by the Bangkok Post.VnExpress stated that Noul prompted the closure of several airports in central Vietnam on Friday, including Da Nang's airport, which led to several dozen cancellations and delays.Noul produced 310 mm (12.20 inches) of rain in Da Nang from Thursday into Friday as the storm moved onshore.> ⛈️Tropical storm Noul has made landfall in Vietnam with strong winds and torrential rain. It's tracking west across Vietnam, Laos & northern Thailand. pic.twitter.com/70Oi8yHwlC> > -- BBC Weather (@bbcweather) September 18, 2020CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APPHeavy rainfall and flash flooding from Noul will now move inland across Indochina through the weekend.Noul (known as Leon in the Philippines) first became a tropical storm on Tuesday night as a broad area of low pressure strengthened across the South China Sea after crossing the Philippines. This satellite loop shows Noul strengthening across the South China Sea on Thursday evening, local time, before landfall in central Vietnam. (CIRA/RAMMB) Now that Noul is inland and losing wind intensity, AccuWeather meteorologists expect flooding rainfall to be the predominant concern through the weekend.AccuWeather Meteorologist Tony Zartman explains, "Even though Noul will lose wind intensity and fall below tropical storm status, it will still pose a significant flooding threat into Sunday." Widespread rainfall totals of 100-150 mm (4-6 inches) are expected from this storm with 200-250 mm (8-10 inches) of rain in the mountainous terrain across central Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and southern Myanmar. An AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 400 mm (16 inches) will be possible in the hardest-hit areas.The heaviest rain from Noul is expected to shift from Vietnam and Laos during the end of the week into Thailand and southern Myanmar through the weekend.This amount of rainfall as the storm tracks inland can lead to flooding and mudslides. Road closures are possible and some isolated communities could be inaccessible for several days.AccuWeather forecasters will continue to monitor Noul into the beginning of next week since what is left of the system after tracking over land is expected to emerge over the Bay of Bengal and can bring impacts to India next week.Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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| Driver launches car across drawbridge as it starts to rise, Michigan police say Posted: 17 Sep 2020 07:39 AM PDT  A witness said the driver blew out all four of his tires.
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| Donor cash surges to Harrison, the Democrat taking on Graham Posted: 18 Sep 2020 11:33 AM PDT  It won't be known until Election Day if a poll showing a tightening contest between Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democrat Jaime Harrison portends an upset — but the gains are real enough in the Democrat's campaign account. On the heels of a Quinnipiac University poll that has him tied with Graham among likely voters in South Carolina, Harrison's campaign has marked two back-to-back fundraising days of $1 million apiece, bringing his total fundraising to over $30 million. It's a staggering sum, unheard of for a Democrat competing in this conservative state, and matches what Graham has also raised in his pursuit of a fourth term.
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| 'They should have let us die in the water': desperate Lebanese migrants sent back by Cyprus Posted: 18 Sep 2020 04:09 AM PDT  Mohammad Ghandour never thought he'd be one of them. "In Lebanon, we are being killed by poverty," Ghandour told Reuters this week, from his mother's cramped three-room apartment where he was staying with 12 other family members. Ghandour, 37, is one of dozens of Lebanese who've attempted the journey since late August, when rights groups say a rise in the number of boats leaving Lebanon began.
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| Students and parents complained after a Dallas high school's class assignment placed the accused Kenosha shooter on a list of 'modern heroes' Posted: 17 Sep 2020 08:39 PM PDT  Rittenhouse was suggested as a "hero for the modern age" along with Malcolm X, George Floyd, and Joseph Rosenbaum, a man allegedly shot by Rittenhouse.
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| Putin will try to kill Navalny again and the West will do little about it, NATO sources say Posted: 17 Sep 2020 08:07 AM PDT  "The moment he makes that calculation," a source says, "we will just know because Navalny is dead."
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| ‘I can’t do it any more, I can’t watch me’: Trump says he is bored of seeing himself Posted: 18 Sep 2020 09:33 AM PDT  President addressed baying crowd in Wisconsin as Joe Biden held CNN town hall
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