| Post-debate and hospitalization, Trump falls further behind Biden in national polls Posted: 06 Oct 2020 12:09 PM PDT  With the 2020 election exactly four weeks away, former Vice President Joe Biden is leading President Trump in every national poll, opening up a significant advantage in surveys taken since the first presidential debate.
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| Postal worker charged after nearly 2,000 pieces of mail, including ballots, found in trash Posted: 07 Oct 2020 04:47 PM PDT  U.S. Attorney Sara Merin said Nicholas Beauchene admitted to dumping the mail, though there was "no indication that there was any political motive."
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| NYC Orthodox Community Holds Protest Over New COVID Restrictions, Chants ‘Jewish Lives Matter’ Posted: 07 Oct 2020 05:28 AM PDT  Hundreds of members of the Borough Park Orthodox community filled the streets Tuesday night to protest new restrictions imposed on neighborhoods with a surge in COVID-19 cases, which include a limit on synagogue attendance and the closure of schools and non-essential businesses.The demonstrations, held into early Wednesday morning, grew more chaotic as the night wore on and protesters resisted orders to disperse: one person was injured "from a physical confrontation with other congregant(s)," protesters set a fire in the middle of a crosswalk and threw cardboard boxes and masks into the flames, according to NBC New York.A significant part of Borough Park faces the new tightened restrictions which limits houses of worship to 10 people or 25 percent capacity and completely closes schools and non-essential businesses. The area is subject to the most restrictive of three color-coded categories which are assigned by coronavirus case data.The neighborhood is among nine in New York City's "red zone" where the coronavirus positivity rate has held above 3 percent for seven straight days. Some members of the Orthodox community say they feel they have been unfairly blamed for the rise in cases.Community activist Heshy Tischler spoke to a large crowd that gathered on the corner of 50th Street and 15th Avenue around 9 p.m., blasting New York governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio over the restrictions which must be enforced no later than Friday, the New York Post reported. "It's called civil disobedience, we can fight back," Tischler said after tearing up his face mask. "Do not allow them to torture you or scare you," he said, referring to elected officials. At another protest on 13th Avenue, councilman Kalman Yeger told the crowd: "We are not going to be deprived of the right that we have in America, like everybody else in America, the right to observe our religion," according to Boro Park News.As demonstrations continued late into the night, the number of protesters grew, with a group shutting down 13th Avenue to vehicular traffic at one point. According to the New York Post, after two city sheriff's deputies responded to a rubbish fire at the intersection of 46th Street and 13th Avenue after midnight, protesters chased them away and chanted "Jewish lives matter" as they held their ground. The fire was later extinguished around 1:30 am by FDNY firefighters and police. Police say no arrests or summonses were issued, according to NBC.Yeger and three other Jewish lawmakers — State Senator Simcha Felder, Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein and Councilman Chaim Deutsch — released a joint statement earlier on Tuesday sharply criticizing the governor for the restrictions and the Cuomo administration's "lack of coordination and communication with local officials.""We are appalled by Governor Cuomo's words and actions today. He has chosen to pursue a scientifically and constitutionally questionable shutdown of our communities," the statement read."His administration's utter lack of coordination and communication with local officials has been an ongoing issue since the start of the pandemic, and particularly recently as we face this uptick," the lawmakers continued.The group said though they represent areas where COVID-19 has spiked, Cuomo's administration had not kept them in the loop leading up to Tuesday's decision to shut down the hot spots.They also slammed Cuomo's use of images of large gatherings of New York's Jewish community — one of which was a 14-year-old photo — in a PowerPoint during his Monday press briefing. "Governor Cuomo's choice to single out a particular religious group, complete with a slideshow of photos to highlight his point, was outrageous," the lawmakers wrote. "His language was dangerous and divisive, and left the implication that Orthodox Jews alone are responsible for rising COVID cases in New York State."
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| Vigil for black man killed by white officer in Texas thrown into chaos as white gunman arrives ‘to protect my city' Posted: 06 Oct 2020 12:22 PM PDT  A vigil for a black Texas man shot and killed by a white police officer turned tense when a white gunman arrived
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| St. Louis husband and wife who pointed guns at protesters are indicted Posted: 06 Oct 2020 05:11 PM PDT  Mark and Patricia McCloskey were each indicted on charges of exhibiting a firearm and tampering with evidence.
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| US surgeon general cited for being in closed Hawaii park Posted: 06 Oct 2020 01:20 PM PDT  The U.S. surgeon general was cited for being in a closed Hawaii park in August while in the islands helping with surge testing amid a spike in coronavirus cases, according to a criminal complaint filed in court. A Honolulu police officer cited Jerome Adams after seeing him with two men "looking at the view taking pictures" at Kualoa Regional Park on Oahu's northeastern coast, the citation said. Adams told the officer he was visiting Hawaii to work with the governor for COVID-19 and didn't know parks were closed.
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| Kamala Harris should make Mike Pence debate Christian values Posted: 07 Oct 2020 02:50 AM PDT  Wednesday night's vice presidential debate probably shouldn't be happening. With coronavirus spreading quickly through the Trump administration, Mike Pence may pose a legitimate health risk to Kamala Harris and the debate's moderator, USA Today's Susan Page. Given those real dangers, the Commission on Presidential Debates has decided to move the candidates from standing seven to now 13 feet apart and has approved the installation of a plexiglass barrier between Harris and Pence. Pence's team, as Politico reported on Monday, opposed the barrier. "If Sen. Harris wants to use a fortress around herself, have at it," Pence's spokeswoman, Katie Miller, mockingly responded to the decision.That response is completely in keeping with how dangerously this administration, especially Trump, has downplayed the pandemic, even at its own peril. Trump's taunting of Biden at last week's presidential debate for his mask wearing, we now know, came just hours before the president tested positive for the virus.Pence is unlikely to show such bluster on Wednesday night. While most of Trump world has used the president's COVID-19 diagnosis to extravagantly extol his superhuman status and aggressively attack reporters asking legitimate questions about his condition, the sanctimonious Pence will likely take a different tack, piously praising Trump's medical team and thanking the American people for their prayers. In an administration full of crooks and con men, Pence has always dutifully played the part of innocent choir boy.That's been his role from the start. Back in 2016, Trump picked Pence, a failing governor of a small state, as his running mate for the sole purpose of bolstering his standing with white evangelicals. If religious conservatives felt unsure about voting for the thrice-married casino magnate and serial adulterer, Pence's presence on the ticket convinced many — or at least provided them with a handy excuse — to vote for Trump. We may never know if Trump really needed Pence to capture the 81 percent of white evangelicals who voted for him in 2016. But their continued fervent enthusiasm for the president — they remain Trump's strongest base of support — suggests Pence has never been the difference maker.Still, the overly-ambitious Pence knows what works with the base. "I'm a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order," Pence often likes to dramatically say, a line that is as unctuous as it is untrue. But even if he doesn't use those gimmicky words tonight, Harris, the former prosecutor, should hold them up as a damning indictment against Pence. Nearly four years into the administration, Pence has shown that more than anything, he's a Trumper through and through, a willing accomplice to the president's worst habits and actions rather than a consistent voice for any real principles, Christian or otherwise.With more than 200,000 Americans dead from coronavirus, Pence's exaggerated religiosity may strike many Americans as particularly galling. The cruel indifference the Trump administration has shown to the suffering of ordinary Americans, not only in this pandemic but especially so, is a deep moral failing as much as it is a political one. While Pence is likely to seize on topics like abortion rights or "religious liberty" as moments to speak about his personal faith, as he did in his 2016 debate with Tim Kaine, Harris should steer the conversation about 2020's most urgent issue to make Pence account for the administration's botched handling of coronavirus on the Christian grounds he claims to hold so fiercely. How does a self-described pro-life, pro-family presidency, she might ask, preside so poorly over a pandemic that has destroyed thousands of American lives and families?Beyond coronavirus, Harris might ask how an administration that has separated children from their families and caged them at the border, has ignored the perilous plight of persons of color while coddling white nationalists, and has closed the nation's doors to those seeking asylum and refuge, including religious minorities, fulfills the Scripture's command to care for "the least of these"? Does Pence's religious charity extend to those who aren't white evangelicals?None of this questioning would amount to religious ridicule of Pence, it should be said. Quite the opposite. Rather, should Harris cross-examine Pence on how his Christian faith squares with what the Trump administration has been doing, she might present it as indicative of her own sincere respect for his expressed values as much as a shrewd debate tactic. Rather than reflexively conceding the moral high ground to a performatively devout Republican politician as Democrats have so often done, Harris could question Pence on the very religious terms that he promotes himself.If Pence, as expected, presents a Trump presidency as the last defense against godless secularism that a Democratic win would bring about — a strange charge against the churchgoing Biden — Harris should hold Pence responsible for the absolute hell on earth that Trump's presidency has brought to bear.More stories from theweek.com The myth of Mike Pence's appeal Trump is shockingly bad at this Is Joe Biden the Konrad Adenauer of the U.S.?
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| A fourth White House press aide has tested positive for COVID-19 Posted: 06 Oct 2020 03:09 PM PDT  The White House communications department is quickly falling as the coronavirus spreads
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| Rhea Chakraborty: Bollywood actor granted bail after nearly a month Posted: 07 Oct 2020 01:40 AM PDT  She was arrested in a drugs case related to the death of her actor-boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput.
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| Biden: If Trump still has COVID-19 'we shouldn’t have a debate' Posted: 06 Oct 2020 04:59 PM PDT  Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that if President Trump is still testing positive for COVID-19 that the two candidates "shouldn't have a debate."
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| German Official Suppressed Intel Report on China to Protect Business Ties: Report Posted: 06 Oct 2020 10:31 AM PDT  A senior German government official suppressed a 2018 intelligence report on China's influence in Germany for fear of damaging business relationships between the two countries, Axios reported on Tuesday.The report detailed China's growing attempts to influence German society, business, and politics, two U.S. intelligence officials said. However, a high-ranking official moved to prevent the report from being disseminated throughout the German government. Only small number of senior officials have read the report, including Chancellor Angela Merkel."As a matter of principle, the German government does not comment on matters concerning intelligence findings or activities of the intelligence services," a government spokesperson told Axios.The news comes after Chancellor Merkel in September refused to ban Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from operating on 5G networks in the country, bucking U.S. pressure to block the company. The U.S. considers Huawei a threat to national security, contending that the Chinese government can use Huawei networks to conduct espionage operations.The U.K. banned Huawei in July after a U.S. pressure campaign, while France has tightened controls on its 5G networks that prevent Huawei from operating freely.German businesses have invested heavily in partnerships with China. Automaker Volkswagen currently operates a factory in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Province, where China is conducting a campaign of mass imprisonment and indoctrination of Muslims in detention camps. Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess claimed in 2019 that he was "not aware" of the existence of the camps.
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| As Bangladesh hosts over a million Rohingya refugees, a scholar explains what motivated the country to open up its borders Posted: 06 Oct 2020 05:17 AM PDT  Over 1.1 million Rohingyas continue to remain stranded in crowded camps in Bangladesh while the international community fails to provide a resolution to the crisis. When in 2017 this lower-middle-income, majority Muslim country opened its borders to the Rohingya fleeing ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, they were largely welcomed. Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stated back then: "We have the ability to feed 160 million people of Bangladesh and we have enough food security to feed the 700,000 refugees." It wasn't just the government. Many private citizens came forward to offer assistance. Existing data indicates that 86% of residents in Teknaf, which is the closest administrative region to the Rakhine state from which most Rohingya originate, were involved in providing emergency relief and housing to the new arrivals. In an era when many rich nations have tried to stop the entry of refugees, Bangladesh's decision to accept refugees in the early days of the crisis could seem puzzling. A scholar of refugees and forced migration, I spent the summer of 2019 in Bangladesh to understand the forces that shaped this initial humanitarian response. Faith and moralityMy ongoing research indicates that many factors played a critical role in Bangladesh's political decision to host the Rohingya, including the country's cultural and religious identity, which centers around ideas of community and responding to those in need.Interviews conducted with political leaders, NGOs and local volunteers revealed that the shared Islamic faith and the Muslim identity of many of the Bangladeshis and the vast majority of the Rohingya galvanized humanitarian assistance in two specific ways. First, the Islamic concepts of "zakat," obligatory charity, which is one of the five pillars of Islam, and that of "sadaqa," or voluntary charity, played crucial roles in motivating private citizens to offer emergency assistance. Both these concepts emphasize the imperative to give to those in need. Religious leaders also used these concepts to encourage donations. In her 2019 address to the United Nations, Prime Minister Hasina referred to humanitarianism in Islam to explain her border policy. Second, the fact that the Muslim Rohingya in particular were being persecuted because of their faith compounded the sense of urgency among those who identified as Muslim to assist the Rohingya. While the vast majority of the Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh were Muslim, smaller numbers of Hindu and Christian Rohingya who arrived with the influx also received emergency assistance and shelter.However, not all those who were interviewed invoked religion to explain their actions. A medical volunteer interviewed for the research said, "Why did we respond? Because it was … the moral thing to do, the humanitarian thing to do. Why shouldn't we? The crisis had literally arrived at our house. How could we even think of turning them away?" Role of culture and historyA recurrent theme in my research was the emphasis around Bangladeshi culture with its focus on sharing one's resources with others in need. Furthermore, like many other countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, which are commonly referred to as the global south, Bangladesh has historically had a fluid border – with Myanmar and India. People move across these borders for agricultural purposes. Marriages between Rohingya and Bangladeshis have been common, and the local population and the Rohingya are able to understand one another's languages.According to a 2018 survey, 81% of respondents believed that the local integration of the Rohingya is possible given that the vast majority of the local population and the Rohingya share many religious, cultural and linguistic practices. Memories of past traumaThe legacy of a painful past also played a role for many Bangladeshis. In 1971, during Bangladesh's war of independence from then West Pakistan (now Pakistan) 10 million Bengalis sought refuge in India to escape a campaign of genocide by the then West Pakistan military. A number of those interviewed for my research underscored the historical memory of this event as being a catalyst for explaining Bangladesh's decision to open its borders. Prime Minister Hasina invoked this history in her 2017 address at the United Nations. She talked about her own experience as a refugee following the 1975 assassination of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Known as the "Father of the Nation," Mujibur Rahman played a key role in Bangladeshi's independence movement.A researcher of Bangladesh's independence struggle stated, "The loss she suffered with the assassination of her whole family except her one sister who was abroad at the time, and the inability to return to her country following the tragedy has had a lasting impact on her life … something about the desperation of those people connected with her on a very personal level and she wanted to do something to help." Leadership in uncertain timesIn recent years, Bangladesh has demonstrated a growing interest in matters of international peace and security. It has received awards from the United Nations for fighting climate change and meeting goals of its immunization program, and it remains the largest contributor to U.N. peacekeeping operations. Since 2017, Bangladesh has submitted three proposals at the United Nations General Assembly to address the Rohingya crisis, including in 2019, drawing support from Rohingya activists. Bangladesh, however, is not a state party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the post-World War II legal document that defines the term "refugee," the obligations of states to protect them, including not returning any individual to a country where they would face torture, or degrading treatment. Instead, Bangladesh refers to the Rohingya as Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMNs). This means that, officially, the Rohingya do not have a legally protected status in Bangladesh. Nevertheless, low-and middle-income countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, which are not state parties to the convention, are among the largest refugee-hosting countries in the world. Disproportionate burdenHowever, in recent times, as the Rohingya situation becomes more protracted, Bangladesh is starting to face internal tensions as prospects for repatriation become less likely.The large refugee population has imposed significant infrastructural, social, financial and environmental pressures and has raised concerns about land insecurity – a serious issue in an overpopulated country. My research further indicated that the significant presence of international NGOs in the Cox's Bazar area, home to the world's largest refugee camp, is impacting the local economy by driving up prices. Local tensions have emerged over government and international aid that has been largely geared toward the Rohingya. In a change of tone, at a three-day Dhaka Global Dialogue in 2019, Prime Minister Hasina referred to the Rohingya as a "threat to the security" of the region. In 2020, Bangladesh began building barbed-wire fencing and installing watchtowers around the camps, citing security concerns. A restriction on access to high-speed internet in the camps was imposed but recently lifted. With the emergence of COVID-19 in the camps, additional challenges have emerged. These have included the spread of infection in cramped camps that lack access to water and testing as well as limited understanding about the virus. [Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]Meanwhile, Myanmar's reluctance to ensure a safe return for the Rohingya, and the realities of COVID-19, have made the prospects of repatriation increasingly dim. As Bangladesh grapples with the pandemic while serving as one of the world's largest refugee host countries, it serves as a reminder of the disproportionate responsibility carried by low-income countries of hosting refugees and the challenges therein.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * I visited the Rohingya camps in Myanmar and here is what I saw * Myanmar charged with genocide of Rohingya Muslims: 5 essential readsTazreena Sajjad does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| New questions arise after chemical weapons body confirms Novichok in Navalny's blood Posted: 07 Oct 2020 07:01 AM PDT  "This publicly unknown nerve agent has, to date, not been officially listed by the OPCW," the German government said.
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| Tesla has reportedly accused an employee of 'maliciously sabotaging' part of its factory in a leaked email Posted: 07 Oct 2020 08:33 AM PDT  Tesla told workers the alleged incident affected "a few hours" of factory run time and that the person had been fired, according to a new report.
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| Russia fires hypersonic missile in birthday blast for Vladimir Putin Posted: 07 Oct 2020 04:20 AM PDT  Russia's armed forces marked birthday of President Vladimir Putin's 68th birthday with the successful test launch of a hypersonic missile. The Tsikron missile, which can travel at 8 times the speed of sound, was launched on Tuesday from a vessel in the White Sea in Russia's north-west, said the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. It successfully hit its target in the Barents Sea, he added. The missile covered a distance of 450 kilometres in four and half-minutes after reaching a hypersonic speed of more than Mach 8. President Putin takes pride in hypersonic weapons, contrasting Russia's status as world-leader in their development with the Cold War when Moscow played catch-up to the US in terms of military technology. Mr Putin praised the test in remarks broadcast on television: "This is a major event not only in the life of the armed forces but also for all of Russia, for the whole country." Mr Putin has previously argued that Russia had to develop new weapons in response to the development of the US missile defence system that threatens to erode Russia's nuclear deterrent.
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| Allegations of personal misconduct by Democrat Cal Cunningham causes turmoil in N. Carolina senate race Posted: 07 Oct 2020 04:50 AM PDT  A race in North Carolina critical to control of the U.S. Senate has been thrown into turmoil over allegations of personal misconduct by Democrat Cal Cunningham, a married man who reportedly had an extramarital relationship this summer with a consultant.
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| Clever-Approved Halloween Decorations Posted: 07 Oct 2020 08:19 AM PDT |
| Yahoo News/YouGov poll: Trump loses support among 3 key demographics after debate, COVID-19 diagnosis Posted: 06 Oct 2020 08:35 AM PDT  Voters who disapprove of both candidates, those who voted for different parties in 2016 and 2018, and college-educated white women are moving toward Biden.
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| 4 Rohingya refugees killed in factional clash in Bangladesh Posted: 06 Oct 2020 12:37 PM PDT |
| Cocaine-laden plane crashes in Mexico after airborne pursuit Posted: 07 Oct 2020 12:44 PM PDT |
| Katie Miller mocked Kamala Harris’ Covid debate precautions. Then her husband tested positive Posted: 07 Oct 2020 03:20 PM PDT  Katie Miller traveled to Utah to help the Vice President ahead of Wednesday's debate
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| Nearly one-third of hospitalized COVID-19 patients develop brain malfunction, study finds Posted: 07 Oct 2020 11:28 AM PDT  Almost one-third of the patients hospitalized with COVID-19 developed encephalopathy – a degeneration of brain function – according to a study by Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.
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| Trump spends a morning at home tweeting his heart out Posted: 07 Oct 2020 10:52 AM PDT  Plummeting in the polls and confined to the White House with nothing on his public schedule, President Trump spent much of Wednesday morning in a frenzy of tweets and retweets.
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| Tana Mongeau says her promise to send free nudes to Biden voters was sarcastic: 'That would be illegal and weird' Posted: 07 Oct 2020 03:28 AM PDT  Numerous outlets and commentators speculated that Mongeau had committed election fraud by offering nudes for Biden votes.
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| Airline passenger sexually assaults sleeping 18-year-old on Indiana flight, feds say Posted: 07 Oct 2020 10:25 AM PDT  The passenger is also accused of exposing himself, the FBI says.
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| Hunt on for Indian tiger after eighth human kill Posted: 07 Oct 2020 05:23 AM PDT  Indian authorities are hunting for a tiger which has killed eight people in the last two years after another fatal attack, officials said Wednesday.
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| DOJ charges British IS members in deaths of Western hostages Posted: 07 Oct 2020 10:50 AM PDT  The Justice Department unsealed charges Wednesday against two Islamic State militants from Britain, accusing them of carrying out a gruesome campaign of torture, beheadings and other acts of violence against Western hostages they had captured in Syria, including four Americans.
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| Iran's Rouhani slams sending fighters to Nagorno-Karabakh Posted: 07 Oct 2020 02:19 AM PDT  Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday warned that his country will not tolerate the presence of foreign fighters — "terrorists that Iran has fought for years" — near its northern border, where a conflict is raging between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Rouhani did not elaborate but Armenia accuses Ankara of sending Turkish-backed Syrian fighters to the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
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| ‘We watched him fade away’: Judge recalls the moment her son was shot dead by disgruntled anti-feminist lawyer Posted: 06 Oct 2020 05:17 PM PDT  'I know that he hated me because I was a woman. He hated me because I was Latina. And that was the source of hate. I had the 'nerve' to become a judge'
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| The IRS is under investigation for buying Americans' smartphone location data from private surveillance companies Posted: 06 Oct 2020 12:54 PM PDT  Buying location data directly from private companies lets government agencies sidestep the need for a court-issued search warrant.
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| USPS employee arrested, accused of dumping mail, including ballots sent to NJ residents Posted: 07 Oct 2020 02:41 PM PDT  Officials announced a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier from New Jersey was arrested Wednesday for discarding mail, including 99 general election ballots sent from the County Board of Elections and intended to be delivered to residents.
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| Trump says U.S. economic recovery is world's fastest — but China has roared ahead Posted: 06 Oct 2020 07:15 PM PDT  China's economic growth is in double digits, Japan's Nikkei index is doing better than the Dow, and South Korea's unemployment rate is almost back to pre-pandemic levels.
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| Fact check: Joe Biden faces friendly fire – partly false – over age, pot, prisons and more Posted: 07 Oct 2020 11:46 AM PDT  An Instagram user levels strong charges against former Vice President Joe Biden but says he will vote for him against Trump
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| He was locked in his room for seven months. His sister gave him a way out, police say Posted: 07 Oct 2020 09:33 AM PDT  A Florida child was so desperate to escape his parents that he did something dangerously extreme, police say.
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| Texas Supreme Court rejects top Republicans' request to shorten early voting period Posted: 07 Oct 2020 02:23 PM PDT  The Texas Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that in-person voting can begin next week, rejecting requests by some of the state's top Republicans to push back the start of early voting. The decision was the latest in a running battle between Texas Republicans and Democrats over how and when people can vote in the most populous Republican-dominated state in the United States. Texas is a longtime Republican stronghold but this year President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden are fighting what could be a tight race to win the state's electoral votes.
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| An earlier universe existed before the Big Bang, and can still be observed today, says Nobel winner Posted: 06 Oct 2020 10:43 AM PDT  An earlier universe existed before the Big Bang and can still be observed today, Sir Roger Penrose has said, as he received the Nobel Prize for Physics. Sir Roger, 89, who won the honour for his seminal work proving that black holes exist, said he had found six 'warm' points in the sky (dubbed 'Hawking Points') which are around eight times the diameter of the Moon. They are named after Prof Stephen Hawking, who theorised that black holes 'leak' radiation and eventually evaporate away entirely. The timescale for the complete evaporation of a black hole is huge, possibly longer than the age of our current universe, making them impossible to detect. However, Sir Roger believes that 'dead' black holes from earlier universes or 'aeons' are observable now. If true, it would prove Hawking's theories were correct.
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| Nearly two decades after US invasion, Afghans fear Taliban return Posted: 05 Oct 2020 11:38 PM PDT  Almost two decades after the United States launched air strikes against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime and started what would become America's longest-ever war, the hardline group are in a stronger position than ever.
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| Louisville SWAT team tells investigators raid on Breonna Taylor’s home was an ‘egregious act’ Posted: 07 Oct 2020 11:39 AM PDT  Several members of the Louisville Metro Police Department's SWAT unit responded to the raid on 13 March
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| Carbon capture 'moonshot' moves closer, as billions of dollars pour in Posted: 07 Oct 2020 01:19 AM PDT  While some say CO2 capture is part of the problem, big projects are being invested in as a part solution to the climate crisis * Support Guardian journalism today, by making a single or recurring contribution, or subscribingAs the world dices with the climate emergency, businesses and governments are starting to push funding towards technology that aims to trap planet-heating gases rather than let them saturate the atmosphere.Carbon capture is a controversial idea, attacked as a costly distraction from stopping emissions occurring in the first place.But last month, the International Energy Agency said it was an imperative part of the mix, warning that it would be "virtually impossible" for the world to hit climate targets without capturing and storing emissions generated from factories, power plants, transportation and other sources. The transition to renewable energy, such as solar and wind, would not cut emissions in time, the IEA said.default In an eye-catching recent deal, a consortium including Amazon and Microsoft invested in CarbonCure Technologies, a Canadian firm seeking to slash the carbon dioxide emissions of concrete. Producing cement, the key ingredient in concrete, creates so much CO2 that if the industry were a country only China and the US would emit more over the course of a year.CarbonCure works with nearly 300 concrete producers to inject captured CO2 into their product. The injected gas chemically transforms into limestone, reinforcing the concrete. Amazon will use the concrete in its buildings, including its vast new headquarters in Virginia.Currently, CarbonCure is injecting CO2 normally used in products such as carbonated drinks but hopes to "close the loop" by capturing it from cement production in order to reduce global concrete emissions by 500m metric tonnes by the end of the decade."The funding from Amazon will be critical to rapidly scale up the solution we've developed," said Christie Gamble, the director of sustainability at CarbonCure. To make a significant dent in pollution, emissions from concrete will have to be captured, or new non-concrete materials will need to be used on a vast scale even as countries such as China and India rapidly build new infrastructure."Is that possible? Absolutely. Will it be challenging? You bet," said Gamble. "This investment is one that indicates a huge amount of optimism of what is possible."This broad sweep of technology can be split roughly into two types – air conditioner-like machines that can suck CO2 directly from the air; and infrastructure that captures emissions at source and stores them, usually underground.Carbon capture is still in its infancy – there are only about 20 projects in commercial use worldwide, according to the IEA – but billions of dollars in investment is flowing into the sector. Microsoft has announced a "moonshot" climate plan that will involve direct air capture of CO2 and biomass energy carbon capture and storage, where wood chips are burned and the resulting carbon is injected into rock formations.Norway is launching a full-scale carbon capture and storage project, named Longship after the Viking vessels, while a direct air capture project for the Permian Basin in the south-western US is doubling in size and aims to suck up 1m tons of CO2 a year. The US government is pitching in, recently awarding $72m to two dozen different carbon capture initiatives."We are at a tipping point and no one knows quite how it will tip," said Klaus Lackner, an Arizona State University expert in the field who invented "mechanical trees" that remove CO2 from the air. Lackner said the world was likely to surge beyond the 1.5C global heating limit set out in the Paris climate agreement. "We are living in an overshoot world where 1.5C will be missed," he said. "We are going to have to step harder on the brakes and we are going to have to get carbon back."But many environmentalists are not keen on an idea that would burnish the green credentials of fossil fuel companies by installing carbon capture technology on power plants. "Carbon capture and storage is not a solution to the climate crisis, it is part of the problem," said Karen Orenstein, the climate and energy programme director at Friends of the Earth. "This extraordinarily expensive pipe dream is just false rhetoric propagated by the fossil fuel industry in an attempt to save itself."graphicCritics point to the example of Petra Nova, a $1bn flagship carbon capture project in Texas that was mothballed this year after the crashing price of oil made it economically unviable (supporters of the project note that it captured 92% of the CO2 that passed through it, exceeding expectations).Lackner said that retrofitting ageing "zombie" power plants with carbon capture units was often pointless, with renewables waiting in the wings to replace fossil fuels. The technology should instead be used, he said, for stubbornly persistent pollution coming from shipping, aviation and trucks that could not easily be removed by the shift to cleaner energy."Scaling up is the issue and so it needs investment and it needs regulation," Lackner said. "We've ignored the problem and now we are in a hole. We have to stop digging but we have to fill the hole up, too."Lackner said the industrial capacity for widespread carbon capture exists, but it required political will. "Much like … sewage in the 18th century, we don't see the value of cleaning up a mess until it hurts us," he said. "There's going to be irreversible harm: species are going to go extinct, seas will rise and we won't be able to unmelt glaciers. We will get there, the question is how much collateral damage we will do on the way."
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| Ultra-Orthodox Rage Over Fresh COVID-19 Clampdown in New York Posted: 06 Oct 2020 03:30 PM PDT  Hours before a new coronavirus crackdown began in New York, Borough Park was fuming.On Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered public and private schools to close in 20 New York City ZIP Codes where positivity rates had spiked in recent weeks, most of them home to substantial ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Anger was already palpable that afternoon on the streets of one of the hottest hotspots citywide, a traditional home of New York's Hasidic population."It's just political theater," raged Mike Weber, whose teenage sons attend the Nesivos Hatalmud yeshiva, standing maskless outside the facility on the neighborhood's north end. "I'm not concerned about corona, I'm concerned about the kids."By Tuesday evening, tensions were at a boiling point as hundreds of ultra-Orthodox community members took to the streets in protest over the crackdown. The New York Post reports protesters lit garbage on fire and refused orders to disperse, and "chased away two city sheriff's deputies who responded." A report from the scene said the crowd was chanting "Jewish Lives Matter!" Religious learning institutions, which the broad majority of students in the affected precincts attend, were actually closed already for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which ends Friday. But nearly every yeshiva in Borough Park featured an attached sukkah—a temporary enclosure, somewhere between a tent and a hut—from which largely maskless men and boys streamed in and out all afternoon.The governor's order Monday left such places of worship untouched—only for him to decree Tuesday that they could only accommodate up to 10 people at a time.Are 'Outside Forces' to Blame in NYC's Hottest COVID Zone?Even community leaders who agreed with the decision to shut down yeshivas and take other pandemic containment measures in the world's former coronavirus epicenter decried the incessant mixed and conflicting messages from Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio. The governor's Monday order came a day after the mayor called for closing not just schools but local businesses, and to begin that program not Tuesday but on Wednesday. Cuomo's initial order this week pertained only to schools, only for him to relent Tuesday and instruct nonessential businesses in designated "red zones" to close as well.That latest announcement was light on details, but included plenty of complaints from the governor about how the city's failure to clamp down on social distancing and mask-flouting scofflaws made the new crackdown necessary."If the plan I passed into law was actually enforced, we wouldn't be here," Cuomo said at a press conference in Albany.The jockeying fits a pattern dating to the earliest days of the pandemic, when Cuomo undercut de Blasio's efforts to impose a stay-at-home order and switch students to remote learning in the five boroughs—before issuing such orders himself."We've had an issue with a consistent message from the city, the state, to the community," Alan Kadish, an Orthodox Jewish physician and president of Touro College, a private Jewish university in New York, told The Daily Beast. "When you have a news conference where the city and the state are at odds, it's harder for the community to feel a partnership with a single voice that's saying 'This is what we need to do to make things right, this is what we need to do to keep kids educated.' It's frustrating."Cuomo's office did not provide an on-the-record statement by deadline. The mayor's office told The Daily Beast it had conducted 7,443 tests across the nine ZIP Codes with the highest positivity rates—while taking an apparent jab at the governor's push to crack down on violators."While others focus mostly on 'enforcement'/ticketing, the city believes we must have an 'all of the above' approach that surges in testing, education, outreach, nd enforcement. That's what is proven to work," said spokesman Bill Neidhardt.In response to the governor's directives, Touro will close not only its higher-education and research facilities, but also a yeshiva it operates in the highlighted ZIP Code of Kew Gardens Hills in Queens next week. Kadish characterized the school-closure order as "reasonable" from a medical perspective.Less reasonable, he argued, was a failure by the state and city governments to collaboratively outline a path for the schools to reopen if the positivity rate comes down. Several of the parents The Daily Beast spoke with this week asserted—without evidence—that any second wave of the coronavirus was less severe than the first, and that the high proportion of infections in religious Jewish communities was a consequence of only ill people taking the test."It's only a couple percent of an increase, it's not like we had before. It's completely different now," complained Jack Brody, whose 20 grandchildren attend schools scattered across Borough Park, as he prepared to join a mass of other unmasked men inside the sukkah at the United Talmudical Academy.Kadish said there was some evidence to support these contentions, but that deeper study was needed. That's why it's essential, he argued, that de Blasio and Cuomo lay out a roadmap for school reopenings that engages the broader population of Borough Park and gets them tested. Gothamist, meanwhile, reported last week that some local leaders appeared to be taking steps to deflate COVID-19 testing numbers in embattled Orthodox areas."Any proposal to close the schools should be accompanied by widespread testing this week, so we know what the magnitude of the problem is," Kadish said. "With the right encouragement, particularly by saying that there's willingness to open the schools as soon as possible if the infection rate goes down, that will galvanize the community to access the resources that are available to get testing done."The impact of the clashing directives from Albany and City Hall was evident on the ground in Borough Park. One local rabbi, who asked to speak anonymously because his yeshiva's board had not authorized him to comment, pointed to the discrepancy between Cuomo's school-closure order and de Blasio's push to also close shops as proof that the entire plan was arbitrary and politically motivated."Why didn't he close all the businesses? Because all the business owners said it would be the final nail in the coffin for them," the rabbi alleged. "The kids just can't speak up for themselves, but it's the final nail in the coffin for them."The religious leader gave vent to fears that young children might fall years behind on reading instruction while high schoolers could miss the state's Regents examinations for a second time, after New York canceled the annual evaluations due to the pandemic this spring.Kadish and other experts explained the special sensitivity around the yeshivas, which have been a point of tension for years. Critics and local dissidents have long complained that some of the schools fail to provide adequate secular instruction, and the city shuttered several that did not mandate student vaccinations during a deadly measles outbreak last year.Rabbi Chaim David Zwiebel, vice president of the nonprofit Agudath Israel, noted that many ultra-Orthodox practitioners lack an Internet connection and other technologies that permit children to study remotely and for parents to obtain reliable information about current affairs—including the pandemic. The yeshivas, in the view of many, are the only way to ensure the continuation of ultra-Orthodox traditions."As a community, there's nothing more precious and important to us than transmitting the Jewish heritage to our children and next generation," Zwiebel said. "This is the central religious obligation that parents have to their children in the Jewish faith. And that is to make sure the next generation will be part of the link that goes all the way back to Sinai. You need Jewish schools."But the mayor's office does not have the power to reopen the schools now that Cuomo has closed them. And a coordination roadmap for on-site lessons to begin again is still missing."We have an opportunity to do widespread testing this week, to demonstrate what the real infection rate is, to see what the real hospitalization rates are, and determine when the schools can be allowed to open," said Kadish. "If we don't take that opportunity, then the decision is a bad decision, because this time will be wasted."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet 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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| United Airlines pilot dies in small plane crash while on honeymoon in Colorado Posted: 07 Oct 2020 10:48 AM PDT  Costas John Sivyllis and Lindsey Vogelaar were on their way home from their honeymoon in Telluride, Colorado when their small plane crashed Monday.
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| Supreme Court turns away Republican appeal on ranked voting Posted: 06 Oct 2020 04:16 PM PDT  The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away a last-ditch effort by the Maine Republican Party to stop ranked choice voting from being used for the first time in the state's presidential contest. Justice Stephen Breyer rejected the request for the high court to intervene after the GOP sought to delay ranked voting in this November's presidential election until state voters had the final say through a "People's Veto" referendum. The Maine GOP's appeal was filed after the first votes had been cast by overseas voters.
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