Why Democrats Are Further Away From Impeachment Than Ever

On Friday afternoon House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) filed a petition to obtain secret grand jury information currently redacted from the Mueller Report. With articles of impeachment under consideration, this informational probe is “in effect” the same as an impeachment inquiry, according to Nadler, who also called the information “critically important.” Next week Nadler is also expected to file a lawsuit to attempt to enforce a subpoena against former White House counsel Donald McGahn. But how significant are Nadler’s moves now that special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony on Capitol Hill is widely acknowledged to have fizzled, left-wing activists such as billionaire and Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer are turning their attention back to climate change—and Congress is heading toward a six-week-long recess?Fred Wertheimer, a veteran ethics activist and president of Democracy 21, believes Nadler’s move is only a cosmetic change to reflect changing party sentiments. “That’s what they’ve been doing since March. When they announced they would investigate three areas regarding the president: obstruction of justice, public corruption, and abuses of power. They have had articles of impeachment pending referred to the committee months and months ago . . . the investigation they have been conducting since March is the equivalent of an inquiry into whether they should consider impeachment,” he told the National Interest.

Moscow police arrest hundreds at rally for fair elections

Russian police arrested more than 300 people as they gathered in Moscow on Saturday to demand free and fair elections, a monitor said, following a crackdown on the opposition. The rally comes a week after the capital's biggest demonstration in years, when some 22,000 people protested the authorities' decision to block opposition candidates from standing for the city council in September. Investigators raided the homes and headquarters of several disqualified candidates in the run-up to the fresh rally on Saturday.

Mueller’s Testimony: A Complete Disaster for Liberals

If Democrats believed that Robert Mueller would provide them with additional ammunition for an impeachment inquiry, they made an extraordinary miscalculation.Not only was Mueller often flustered and unprepared to talk about his own report—we now have to wonder to what extent he was even involved in the day-to-day work of the investigation—but he was needlessly evasive. In the end, he seriously undermined the central case for impeachment of President Donald Trump.The very first Republican to question him, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Doug Collins, forced Mueller to correct his own opening statement. In it, the former FBI director had asserted that the independent counsel “did not address collusion, which is not a legal term.”Stressing the difference between the criminal conspiracy and the colloquial “collusion” is a popular way of obscuring the fact that the central conspiracy pushed by Democrats, one that plunged the nation into two years of hysterics and fantasy, had been debunked by Mueller.Moreover, as Collins pointed out, Mueller’s own report stated that “collusion” and criminal conspiracy were basically “largely synonymous.”When asked to explain this contradiction, Mueller stammered for a few minutes before saying he would “leave it with the report.” Collins pointed out that, yes, the report stated that the terms “collusion” and “conspiracy” were synonymous, Mueller was forced to admit, “Yes.”It didn’t get better from there. Mueller didn’t know where some of the most infamous quotes in his own report had emanated. He claimed to be unfamiliar with Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, the Clinton—and DNC—funded contractors who originated and then propelled the Trump-Russian collusion theory.

The Secret History of Washing Machines

Climate change warning as Arctic Circle burning at record rate

An unprecedented outbreak of wildfires in the Arctic has sent smoke across Eurasia and released more carbon dioxide in two months than the Czech Republic or Belgium does in a year. As 44C heatwaves struck Europe, scientists observed more than 100 long-lasting, intense fires in the Arctic in June, the hottest month on record, and are seeing even more in July, according to Mark Parrington of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Mostly in Alaska and Russia, the infernos have collectively released more than 120 million tonnes of CO2, more than the annual output of most countries. It is the most carbon emitted since satellite monitoring began in the early 2000s. This will further exacerbate climate change and has sent smoke pouring toward more populated parts of the world. Pollutants can persist more than a month in the atmosphere and spread thousands of kilometres. “You ask people about the Arctic, they think ice, polar bears, a clean environment, but clearly that's changing and that's no longer the case,” Mr Parrington said. “It should be an alarm bell that something isn't right, but the way it could directly affect them is the long-range transfer of smoke pollution. I don't think it's getting as far as western Europe just yet but that could happen.” The huge amounts of carbon from the fires will exacerbate climate change Credit: Maxar Technologies via AP While some have estimated that up to half a million kilometres have burned worldwide this year, Russia has been especially hard hit. Already, dangerous levels of smoke pollution have been reported this week in the cities of Chelyabinsk, Tomsk and Novosibirsk, where a curtain of smog turned the daytime sun a deep red. The number of patients in some cardiac wards have reportedly doubled. Fires first erupted in the peatlands of northern Siberia in June and have been joined by blazes in the massive boreal forests south of the Arctic circle. More than 30,000 square kilometres of Russian territory are currently burning, already about as much as in 2018 and twice as much as in 2017. This has created a 4.5 million square kilometre “smoke lid” that reaches as far east as the Pacific Ocean and as far south as Kazakhstan. To the west, thick smoke haze has drifted into more populated parts of the country, obscuring the streets of cities like Yekaterinburg and Perm and being detected all the way in Kazan on the Volga River. “This morning I thought a rubbish bin was burning outside the window, but it hasn't passed, the smoke is staying there,” Yekaterinburg resident Yevgenia Panasyuk told local television. Impressive extent of heavy smoke across much of central Russia/Siberia, Alaska & Canada from numerous intense boreal & Arcticwildfires shows up in latest Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service aerosol optical depth forecast https://t.co/N5E33mccshpic.twitter.com/br0kkT02HY— Mark Parrington (@m_parrington) July 24, 2019 Once rare in the cold, wet tundra and forests, fires in the Arctic, which is warming at twice the world average, have been flaring up with increasing frequency. The Copernicus satellite system has observed an average of 50 to 60 Arctic hotspots on summer days since it began monitoring in 2003. This summer it has been seeing about 250 per day. And while in the past Arctic blazes would typically go out in a few days, the duration of this year's fires, many of which of have been burning for nearly two months, is shocking, Mr Parrington said. The long-term effects could be dire. Already in June, fires began to deposit soot known as “black carbon” on Arctic sea ice, accelerating its melt. Russia has mobilised 2,715 personnel and 28 aircraft but they are only fighting fires in about 1,500 square kilometres of territory. A brush fire burns in South Anchorage, Alaska Credit: Loren Holmes/Anchorage Daily News via AP Like in Alaska and Canada, not all fires here receive a response. Since 2015, Russia has declined to combat blazes in vast, remote “control zones” unless they threaten towns. “The logic is clear, we need to save money,” the head of the Krasnoyarsk region said this month. But the policy of leaving fires alone until they spread to populated areas has resulted in an “environmental disaster at a national level,” Greenpeace Russia said on Friday. It claimed that hundreds of villages were within the control zones, calling on these boundaries to be redrawn and for the government to send additional firefighting forces to defend villages. Also on Friday, a study published in Science found that some Alaskan glaciers were melting 100 times faster than previously thought. Drawing on data about the terminus of a glacier in LeConte Bay collected by local high students since 1983, scientists scanned the glacier with sonar, radar and time-lapse cameras for two summers to discover that the underwater part of it was melting up to 16 feet per day in August. Their results have demonstrated that glaciers are more sensitive to warming ocean temperatures than researchers had known.

Family speaks out after girl with special needs was brutally attacked by multiple teens in viral video

The family of a 15-year-old Chicago girl with special needs said she is doing OK after she was brutally beaten by a group of teenagers.

Student group says Harvard failed to address racist messages

An association of black students at Harvard Law School says the university "woefully failed to act" after four students received offensive emails and text messages from an anonymous sender. The Harvard Black Law Students Association issued a statement on Friday criticizing the school after it was unable to determine who sent the "hateful, racist and sexist" messages, and after officials refused to share details of an investigation with students who received the messages. Harvard officials say the case was investigated by university police, information technology officials and an outside law firm hired by the school, but they have been unable to determine who was behind the messages.

The Mueller Report’s Fundamental Dodge

Editor’s Note: This is the first article in a two-part series; the second will appear tomorrow.Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony was such a bumbling fiasco that it was easy for a viewer to be confused -- and stay that way -- about the main bone of Democratic contention regarding his report: the “OLC guidance” that prevents the Justice Department from charging a president with crimes while he is in office. Specifically, how did it factor into the special counsel’s decision -- or, rather, non-decision -- on the main question he was appointed to answer: Did President Trump obstruct justice? How did the special counsel’s dubious reliance on it as a rationale for abdicating on this question affect the publication and ramifications of the Mueller report?We’ve plowed this ground before, but it is worth revisiting. We will do that in this weekend’s two-part series. This is Part 1.The OLC GuidanceThe OLC is the Office of Legal Counsel, the lawyers’ lawyers in the Justice Department who formulate policies that guide federal prosecutors throughout the United States. The OLC guidance at issue in the Mueller investigation is the prohibition on indicting a sitting president. This rule is said to be derived from constitutional and prudential considerations.I do not believe the guidance is sound. But that’s beside the point: The guidance is binding on Justice Department lawyers, period. That means it is also binding on special counsels. By regulation, they are firmly in the Justice Department chain of command.Consequently, the OLC guidance applied to Mueller’s investigation of President Trump. In particular, it was relevant to the obstruction aspect of the probe, which was always a criminal investigation. (For reasons that need not divert us, the “collusion” part of the case was pretextually conducted as a counterintelligence investigation.)Because (a) the president was the principal subject of the obstruction probe and (b) the objective of such a criminal investigation is to indict wrongdoers, the pertinence of the OLC guidance is obvious. The question is: What is the effect of its application?Until Mueller’s investigation, I would have thought this was straightforward. The president may not be indicted while in office. Notice: This does not mean the president may not be investigated while in office; nor does it mean the president may never be indicted. The investigation may proceed while a president serves his term; if the prosecutor finds sufficient evidence to charge a criminal offense, an indictment may be obtained from the grand jury as soon as a president is out of office.That is, just as in any other case, the criminal allegation must be investigated, and a charging decision must be made. The only difference is: If the case is judged worthy of indictment, the indictment must be deferred until a president leaves office. This is key: The point of the guidance is not to give presidents a special defense that is unavailable to other Americans. Presidents are not above the law. The guidance is not of substantive significance; it is merely a matter of timing: In deference to the awesome responsibilities of the presidency, we do not permit the chief executive to be burdened during his term by the consuming effort and anxiety of defending against a criminal charge. Presidents are not spared forever from these burdens that other accused persons must bear, just while in office.Democrats Push Mueller to Contradict ReportThat, however, is not how the OLC guidance was construed by Mueller -- or, I should say in light of Mueller’s patent unfamiliarity with the Mueller probe, by whoever on the special counsel staff was actually running the investigation.The staff took the position that the OLC guidance did not just forbid the indictment of a sitting president. Its logic, they insisted, rendered it impermissible even to consider whether there was sufficient evidence to indict a sitting president.That’s ridiculous. But before we come its incoherence and disingenuousness, let’s deal with why the special counsel’s theory was critical to Mueller’s testimony.Democrats would like to impeach the president. The best way to lay the groundwork for that would be to establish Trump’s commission of a felony. To be sure, presidential misconduct need not qualify as a penal-law felony to qualify as an impeachable offense. Yet, if an abuse of power does amount to a felony, the case for impeachment is much stronger. Therefore, Democrats want to be able to argue that Mueller, the renowned prosecutor who vigorously investigated for nearly two years, authoritatively concluded that Trump committed felony obstruction.Of course, Mueller made no such finding. For Democrats, the next best thing is to establish that Mueller in effect concluded that Trump committed felony obstruction but was prevented from filing charges by a technicality. That is, they wanted Mueller to testify that if it were not for the OLC guidance, he would have called for the president’s indictment.The problem: That’s not what Mueller’s report says. In the report, the special counsel took the position that, because of the OLC guidance, it would have been impermissible for prosecutors even to consider indicting the president. So, he did not, in effect, find felony obstruction. If you believe the report on this (I don’t, by the way), the special counsel’s staff never weighed the evidence for purposes of making a charging decision, one way or the other.The main reason Democrats foolishly pressured Mueller into testifying was the hope that he would abandon the restraint of his report. They calculated that they could push him or trick him into saying that but for the OLC guidance, he would have charged the president.Fleetingly, after a couple of excruciating hours, Democrats got this concession out of the badgered and befuddled special counsel during questioning by Representative Ted Lieu (D., Calif.). But Representatives Debbie Lesko (R., Ariz.) and John Ratcliffe (R., Texas) swooped in to clean up the mess. So did the special counsel himself. Right after the lunch recess, having clearly been coached regarding his blunder, Mueller clarified (if you can call it that) that he had misspoken, and he reaffirmed “his” report. Bottom line: Mueller would not testify that, if not for the OLC guidance, the president would have been indicted. He says his team never considered indicting Trump, never evaluated whether there was enough evidence to charge obstruction.The Distortion of the OLC Guidance by Mueller’s StaffLegally, Mueller’s interpretation of the OLC guidance is absurd. A prosecutor has only one job: to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This is elucidated by federal regulations: The special counsel must prepare “a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions.” There is no third way. There is no authorization to evade what Mueller’s transgressive staff described as the “traditional,” “binary” prosecutorial decision to charge or not to charge.The regs design the special counsel to be an ordinary federal prosecutor. When I was a line prosecutor, my boss was the district U.S. attorney. Analogously, the special counsel is a line prosecutor whose boss is the attorney general. My job was to investigate cases and make a recommendation to my chain of command to indict or decline prosecution. Mueller’s job was to make that same recommendation to the AG. If Mueller had found sufficient evidence to file charges, it would then have been up to the AG to decide (a) whether to accept that recommendation and (b) whether to delay indictment until the president left office, in accordance with the OLC guidance.That is to say: The OLC guidance on the timing of an indictment has nothing to do with whether there is a prosecutable case. There is no justification for freighting the charging decision with the timing issue.Again, the OLC guidance does not say the president may never be indicted, just that he may not be indicted while in office. Plainly, then, regardless of when an indictment is filed, somebody has to make the decision about whether an indictment should be filed. Under Mueller’s harebrained theory, we should not expect the prosecutor who spends $40 million investigating the case for two years to make this call; rather, some other prosecutor should reinvent the wheel -- retrieve the file, reassemble the evidence, get up to speed on the record, re-interview all the witnesses, etc. -- after Trump leaves office, whether that’s a year and a half or five and a half years from now. We should just pretend the ride Mueller & Co. have taken us on since May 2017 never happened.That’s batty. So what is Mueller’s rationale for such a procedure? Well, that’s even more laughable: Mueller would have you think he’s just trying to protect President Trump.A likely story, no? We’ll see when we explore it in Part 2, tomorrow.

US, Guatemala sign agreement to restrict asylum cases

The Trump administration signed an agreement with Guatemala that will restrict asylum applications to the U.S. from Central America. The "safe third country" agreement would require migrants, including Salvadorans and Hondurans, who cross into Guatemala on their way to the U.S. to apply for protections in Guatemala instead of at the U.S. border. It could potentially ease the crush of migrants overwhelming the U.S. immigration system, although many questions remain about how the agreement will be executed.

Massive manhunt in Canadian wilderness for teen murder suspects

Two teen triple murder suspects on the run in the central Canadian wilderness -- perhaps holed up in thick, insect-infested forest inhabited by wolves and bears,-- were staying one step ahead of a massive police manhunt Friday. Since Tuesday, the village of Gillam near Hudson Bay has been on the alert for Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, who are wanted for three murders. The fugitives wound up near the Manitoba province village located 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) north of Winnipeg after an epic 2,000-mile chase across three provinces that began in British Columbia, on the Pacific coast, where their three victims were discovered earlier this month.

Trump news - live: Impeachment chances grow after bid to unseal grand jury evidence, as president attacks Macron and threatens Obama probe

Democrats have again raised the prospect of Donald Trump’s impeachment as the US House judiciary committee asked a judge to force the release of grand jury evidence from the Mueller investigation.The request, filed on Friday, explicitly referenced Congress’ impeachment powers and is a major step forward in the Democrats' legal fight against the US president.It comes as Mr Trump threatened to investigate Barack Obama “the way they’ve looked into me”. Please allow a moment for the liveblog to load:In statements given in the Oval Office, the US president suggested the attention given to his ties to Russia and possible obstruction of justice could apply to other presidents. Mr Trump also hit out at French president Emmanuel Macron, accusing him of “foolishness” after Paris announced a tax aimed at US technology companies.He also hinted that he would tax French wine in retaliation, adding that he preferred American wine despite being a know teetotaller.Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court gave his administration the green light to spend $2.5bn from a military budget on building a border wall.A trial court had previously said the money could not be switched from the Pentagon towards construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border. But on Friday the nation’s highest court permitted constriction to continue while litigation over the issue played out.

A look at the 5 federal death row inmates facing execution

The Justice Department announced Thursday that it will resume executing death row prisoners for the first time in nearly two decades. At the direction of Attorney General William Barr, the federal Bureau of Prisons has scheduled the executions of five inmates being held on death row at USP Terre Haute, a high-security penitentiary in Indiana. Danny Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, was convicted in the 1996 deaths of an Arkansas family as part of a plot to set up a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest.

Loose tire rolls down New Jersey highway until crashing into car

It was a wild scene in New Jersey when a wayward tire rolled down the highway until it went flying into a moving vehicle.

U.S.A. Basketball Will Pay Some Women’s Players Ahead of Olympics

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2ygqe9d

Migration deal with US meets mixed reactions in Guatemala

US President Donald Trump, who has pushed hard to slow the flow of migrants, said Friday that the "safe third country asylum" agreement would require would-be asylum seekers traveling through Guatemala to seek refuge there, not in the United States. Anyone failing to do so would be sent back to Guatemala.

UPDATE 1-Eight killed in quake, aftershocks in Philippines, 60 injured - agency

An earthquake and aftershocks struck islands off the north of the Philippines on Saturday killing eight people and injuring 60, disaster officials said. An initial quake of magnitude 5.4 that struck the Batanes islands was followed shortly by an aftershock of magnitude 5.9, according to Philippine government data. Another big aftershock struck a little later.

Man charged in water dousing incident against 2 female NYPD officers in Bronx

A man is facing charges in connection to two water dousing incidents in the Bronx - including one involving NYPD officers.

Justice Department approves $26.5 billion T-Mobile and Sprint merger

Despite some ongoing and vociferous opposition to T-Mobile and Sprint's brewing merger, the U.S. Department of Justice today officially approved it. Notably, the approval comes just a few weeks after the Antitrust Division within the DOJ recommended that the $26.5 billion merger be blocked. Incidentally, the FCC indicated that it was amenable to the merger this past May.There are, naturally, some caveats worth mentioning with respect to the DOJ approval. First and foremost, the merger hinges on Sprint divesting itself from Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and its own prepaid phone business. Additionally, some of T-Mobile and Sprint's spectrum will be handed over to Dish.The DOJ press release reads in part:> Under the terms of the proposed settlement, T-Mobile and Sprint must divest Sprint's prepaid business, including Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Sprint prepaid, to Dish Network Corp., a Colorado-based satellite television provider. The proposed settlement also provides for the divestiture of certain spectrum assets to Dish. Additionally, T-Mobile and Sprint must make available to Dish at least 20,000 cell sites and hundreds of retail locations. T-Mobile must also provide Dish with robust access to the T-Mobile network for a period of seven years while Dish builds out its own 5G network.Despite the DOJ's approval, the merger won't be 100% official until an ongoing lawsuit involving 13 state attorneys general is resolved. That particular trial is slated to begin in early October. As you may have guessed, the main argument among those who vehemently oppose the deal is that it will reduce competition and ultimately raise costs for subscribers.Speaking on the matter, New York State attorney General Letitia James said the following earlier this year:> The T-Mobile and Sprint merger would not only cause irreparable harm to mobile subscribers nationwide by cutting access to affordable, reliable wireless service for millions of Americans, but would particularly affect lower-income and minority communities here in New York and in urban areas across the country.Some also argue that a T-Mobile and Sprint merger, by virtue of reducing competition, might signal the end for unlimited plans.The argument that the merger will harm consumers is particularly interesting, if not ironic, given that both Sprint and T-Mobile have traditionally exceptionally consumer-friendly compared to other mobile carriers.On the flip side, company spokespeople for both T-Mobile and Sprint have articulated that the merger will benefit consumers insofar that it will facilitate and hasten the arrival of 5G to the masses.

CORRECTED-WIDER IMAGE-Reuters photo captures Guatemalan mother begging soldier to let her enter U.S.

Supreme Court allows border wall spending in battle between President Donald Trump and liberal opponents

The Supreme Court approved President Trump's effort to use $2.5 billion in military funding to build a portion of his long-sought border wall.

Romanian leader floats harsher penalties for murder, rape

Son of Iraq's late Yazidi prince takes over as leader

Baghdad (AFP) - Hazem Tahsin Bek on Saturday succeeded his late father as prince of the Yazidi religious minority that was brutalised by the Islamic State group in northern Iraq.

'Unprecedented': more than 100 Arctic wildfires burn in worst ever season

Huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia and Alaska are producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from spaceThe Arctic is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, with huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia and Alaska producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from space.The Arctic region has recorded its hottest June ever. Since the start of that month, more than 100 wildfires have burned in the Arctic circle. In Russia, 11 of 49 regions are experiencing wildfires.The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations’ weather and climate monitoring service, has called the Arctic fires “unprecedented”.The largest blazes, believed to have been caused by lightning, are located in Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Buryatia. Winds carrying smoke have caused air quality to plummet in Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia.In Greenland, the multi-day Sisimiut blaze, first detected on 10 July, came during an unusually warm and dry stretch in which melting on the vast Greenland ice sheet commenced a month earlier than usual.In Alaska, as many as 400 fires have been reported. The climatologist Rick Thomas estimated the total area burned in the state this season as of Wednesday morning at 2.06m acres.Mark Parrington, senior scientist with the Climate Change Service and Atmosphere Monitoring Service for Europe’s Copernicus Earth Observation Programme, described the extent of the smoke as “impressive” and posted an image of a ring of fire and smoke across much of the region.Thomas Smith, an environmental geographer at the London School of Economics, told USA Today fires of such magnitude have not been seen in the 16-year satellite record.The fires are not merely the result of surface ignition of dry vegetation: in some cases the underlying peat has caught fire. Such fires can last for days or months and produce significant amounts of greenhouse gases.“These are some of the biggest fires on the planet, with a few appearing to be larger than 100,000 hectares,” Smith said.“The amount of [carbon dioxide] emitted from Arctic circle fires in June 2019 is larger than all of the CO2 released from Arctic circle fires in the same month from 2010 through to 2018 put together.”In June alone, the WMO said, Arctic fires emitted 50 megatonnes of CO2, equal to Sweden’s total annual emissions.

No 'day in court': U.S. deportation orders blindside some families

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Carin, a 39-year-old subsistence farmer from Honduras, crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her two sons late last year. Carin said she made sure to check the mailbox regularly at the apartment in Colorado where they were living. It was a deportation order.

Co-conspirator in ex-India PM's assassination released on parole

India's longest-serving female prisoner, who was convicted over the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, walked out of prison Thursday on a 30-day parole to arrange her daughter's marriage. Nalini Sriharan was granted parole earlier this month by the Madras High Court after spending nearly three decades in jail over her role in Gandhi's murder by a female suicide bomber in 1991.

Massive manhunt in Canadian wilderness for teen murder suspects

Two teen triple murder suspects on the run in the central Canadian wilderness -- perhaps holed up in thick, insect-infested forest inhabited by wolves and bears -- were staying one step ahead of a massive police manhunt Friday. Since Tuesday, the village of Gillam near Hudson Bay has been on the alert for Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, who are wanted for three murders. The fugitives wound up near the Manitoba province village 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) north of Winnipeg after an epic 2,000-mile chase across three provinces that began in British Columbia, on the Pacific coast, where their three victims were discovered earlier this month.

Ally Kostial murder: Former-neighbor shares dark details about suspect in Ole Miss student's death

" "I'm not going to sugar coat it, he was pretty much a daddy's boy type,"University of Mississippi student Rex Ravita told KMOV

Israeli troops kill Palestinian at Gaza border protest: medics

Trump news - live: Unprecedented impeachment call issued as president renews attack on Mueller and invents imaginary word

Donald Trump has continued to lash out in the wake of Robert Mueller's explosive testimony in front of Congress, while taking the time to make up words and tweet about the imprisonment of A$AP Rocky.The president is trying to undo the damage from the hearings involving Mr Mueller, who said he was not able to say that his report had cleared Mr Trump of any wrongdoing.He has also been wrapped in another controversy after he spoke in front of a bizarre version of the presidential seal, which included references to the Russian flag and a set of golf clubs.Yet more footage has emerged from that same Turning Point USA event, which showed the president being introduced by a bizarre campaign video that highlighted Mr Trump's sporting prowess and popularity among friends.It also comes as the president's administration announced it would begin federal executions for the first time in more than 15 years.Please allow a moment for the live blog to load

Co-conspirator in ex-India PM's assassination released on parole

India's longest-serving female prisoner, who was convicted over the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, walked out of prison Thursday on a 30-day parole to arrange her daughter's marriage. Nalini Sriharan was granted parole earlier this month by the Madras High Court after spending nearly three decades in jail over her role in Gandhi's murder by a female suicide bomber in 1991.

30 Wicked-Good Halloween Punches Every Costume Party Needs

Hong Kong protesters take their cause to airport arrivals

HONG KONG (AP) — Protesters crowded into one of the world's busiest airports, greeting international visitors to Hong Kong with anti-government chants Friday in an effort to raise awareness of their pro-democracy movement. For several weeks, Hong Kong residents have been protesting for democratic reforms and the withdrawal of an extradition bill that has now been suspended. "Hong Kong doesn't look like how it did before," said Ho, 22.

Impeachment Would Probably Cost Democrats the House

The New York Times reports that House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler has “gradually become convinced that his panel should proceed with impeachment hearings and do so as expeditiously as possible, though he has not stated so publicly,” citing “lawmakers and aides familiar with his thinking.”Nadler should not be surprised that he’s encountering so much resistance to this idea from House speaker Nancy Pelosi. A great deal has been written about how impeaching Trump — in a move that would by entirely symbolic, insofar as the Republican-held Senate would never convict and remove him from office — could improve his odds of reelection. Less-discussed is the very good chance that it would cost Democrats control of the House.Thirty-one Democrats from districts Trump carried in 2016 currently sit in the House. Moving forward with impeachment would force an incredibly difficult vote on all of those Democrats, including the 13 from districts Trump won by more than six percentage points. Democrats currently have 235 House seats. Republicans currently have 197 seats, with two vacancies in GOP-leaning districts in North Carolina. If the GOP keeps those two seats, it would need to flip 19 seats in 2020 to retake control of the lower chamber.Pro-impeachment Democrats were thrilled that 95 House members voted for the recent impeachment resolution offered by Representative Al Green of Texas. But that vote revealed that purple-district Democrats have no appetite for impeachment. While it’s possible that the revelations in the Mueller report or the president’s other flaws have reduced Trump’s level of support in the 31 Democrat-held House districts he won, not a single one of the 31 Democrats in question voted for Green’s resolution, and not a single one has publicly supported impeachment so far. That suggests Trump is probably still pretty popular in their districts — or at least that they remain wary of rocking the boat.If all 31 Democrats in Trump districts voted no and every other Democrat voted yes, impeachment would fail with just 205 votes, 13 short of the 218 needed. (For the sake of this math, assume that there are no vacancies or members voting “present” on such a consequential matter, and that every Republican votes no, as all indications are they would.) Democratic leaders could allow 18 members to vote “no” and pass impeachment by a single vote, but that would leave 13 of their colleagues voting to impeach Trump from districts he carried in 2016. Winning those seats would put Republicans at 212, just six short of what they need to flip the House. (Representative Justin Amash, who recently left the GOP and supports impeachment, intends to run for reelection as an independent. This math assumes that Amash is not defeated by a GOP challenger in 2020. His district scores R+6 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and Trump carried it by ten points in 2016.)There’s another complication to this scenario: how the Democratic grassroots back home would react to the 18 Democrats who vote against impeachment. They might accept that their representatives’ votes reflected the will of their districts, or they might see the votes as an unacceptable betrayal and organize primary challenges or Election Day boycotts. House Democrats might insist that only a small portion of the base would be mad enough to punish a House member who opposed impeachment in 2020. But a lot of these purple-district Democrats won in 2018 by the skin of their teeth.Ben McAdams won his 2018 race in Utah by 694 votes. Lucy McBath won by 3,264 votes in Georgia. Kendra Horn won perhaps the biggest upset of the cycle in Oklahoma by 3,338 votes. Xochitl Torres Small won by 3,722 votes in New Mexico, Andrew Kim by 3,973 votes in New Jersey, and Joe Cunningham by 3,982 in South Carolina. The last thing these vulnerable incumbents need is an impeachment vote that gives them the option of angering either their party’s base or the electorate as a whole.A successful impeachment vote would probably end the careers of at least 13 House Democrats and create serious turnout headaches for at least 18 more. Maybe in Nadler’s mind, it would be worth it to America, no matter the political consequences. But Pelosi’s concerns — and those of the 137 Democrats who voted against Green’s resolution — are not difficult to understand.

US Navy Seals platoon sent home from Iraq for drinking alcohol as sexual assault allegations investigated

The commander of a US Special Operations task force in Iraq has sent home a platoon of Navy SEALs for drinking while deployed after an alleged sexual assault by one of them, US defence officials said, the latest discipline incident that has emerged for an elite force relied upon heavily by the Pentagon.US Special Operations Command said in a statement on Wednesday night that the platoon was forced out early to San Diego by the commander of the task force, Major General Eric Hill, “due to a perceived deterioration of good order and discipline within the team during non-operational periods” of their deployment.“The Commander lost confidence in the team’s ability to accomplish the mission,” the statement said. “Commanders have worked to mitigate the operational impact as this SEAL platoon follows a deliberate redeployment.”The statement did not say what led to the decision, but a defence official with knowledge of the situation said that a female service member working with their platoon reported being sexually assaulted by one of the SEALs during the Fourth of July holiday weekend.The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, said the report triggered scrutiny of the platoon, including drinking while deployed.The SEALs declined to cooperate with investigators, prompting Maj Gen Hill to send them home for both that and the alcohol use, the official said. The reported assault was first reported on Thursday by the New York Times.A second person, a senior US Navy official, said on Thursday that he was aware of alleged sexual misconduct being a part of the case, but was not sure if an assault had been reported.The officials said that the SEALs involved violated General Order No. 1, which bans alcohol use while deployed.The SEALs were members of SEAL Team 7, which has headquarters in San Diego when not deployed, one of the defence officials said.The defence official familiar with the sexual assault report said that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is overseeing the sexual assault case, while other military officials investigate administratively the culture and actions in the unit.Commander Tamara Lawrence, a spokeswoman for Naval Special Warfare Command, said in a statement on Wednesday night that her unit is “actively reinforcing” with the entire force “basic leadership, readiness, responsibility and ethical principles that must form the foundation of special operations”.“Leaders at all levels must lead in a way that sustains and sharpens that foundation,” she said. “Discipline is a competitive advantage, and enforcing those standards is critical to our success on the battlefield.”The disclosure by the military comes two days after the independent Navy Times reported that six members of SEAL Team 10 in Virginia Beach tested positive last year for cocaine use.Some of them had masked their use of it in previous tests, some of the SEALs told investigators, Navy Times reported.The Iraq incident also comes after Navy SEALs were implicated in the death of Army Staff Sergeant Logan Melgar, a Special Forces soldier who was strangled in Mali in June 2017.Two members of SEAL Team 6 – Chief Special Warfare Operator Adam Matthews and Chief Special Warfare Operator Anthony DeDolph – and two Marine Raiders were charged with murder.Mr Matthews and one of the Marines, Staff Sergeant Kevin Maxwell, have pleaded guilty to lesser charges, and testified that Mr Melgar was accidentally killed in what the military has called a hazing incident involving alcohol.Another SEAL, Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Gallagher, recently faced court-martial on war-crimes charges that included murder.He was acquitted of the most serious charges but was convicted of posing for an unlawful photo with the remains of an Isis fighter.The government’s case against him fell apart after another SEAL who was offered immunity from prosecution to testify said under oath that he, not Mr Gallagher, had been the one who killed a wounded Isis fighter.Washington Post

Gunmen dressed as police steal £24 million of gold destined for New York and Zurich from Sao Paulo airport

Eight armed men carried out a sophisticated heist at Sao Paulo's main international airport and managed to escape with some 750 kilos of precious metals, airport authorities said Thursday. GRU Airport, which holds the Guarulhos operation concession, said the thieves hauled away gold destined for Zurich and New York by using two cars that looked like police patrol vehicles. They also dressed as officers, covered their faces and carried long weapons before making their getaway, according to security camera footage shown on Globo TV. The television outlet said the vehicles were later abandoned in Jardim Pantanal, a neighborhood located 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the airport. The operator said there were no shootings or injuries during the assault. But a police officer said an airport official and eight members of his extended family, including four minors, had been kidnapped for 12 hours. They were expected to give testimony in the next few hours, he added. The officer requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. Sao Paulo police said they had reinforced surveillance around the area and were searching for the stolen cargo. GRU Airport said flights continue to operate normally.

Jeffrey Epstein Found Injured in Manhattan Jail Cell

HandoutAccused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was found “in some kind of medical distress” in his cell at a Manhattan jail on Tuesday, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Daily Beast.“He had apparent bruising on his neck,” the source said, adding that he was “medically OK” by Wednesday.Exactly what happened to Epstein inside the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center remains shrouded in mystery.According to sources cited by NBC New York, which first reported on the incident, the wealthy sex offender was said to have been semi-conscious when he was found. Two sources cited by NBC said he may have attempted to hang himself, while another source suggested the injuries were so minor that he may have simply been trying to get himself transferred. An assault has also not been ruled out, with a fourth source saying a former police officer serving time on drug and murder charges has been questioned. After initially being put into the general population at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, Epstein had been moved to solitary protective custody after other inmates threatened him, another source familiar with his conditions has told The Daily Beast.Judge Who Denied Bail to Jeffrey Epstein Calls Him ‘Uncontrollable’ and a ‘Danger’Epstein’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.But Bruce Barket, an attorney for another inmate on the same Special Housing Unit, told The Daily Beast that his law partner saw Epstein and his attorneys at the MCC on Wednesday morning “and he looked fine.”Barket said a report that his client, Nick Tartaglione, had been questioned about a possible assault on Epstein was inaccurate. He alleged that his name was leaked by someone at the jail in retaliation for complaints about “hellhole” conditions there.“They know each other and have gotten along well,” Barket said of his client and Epstein.Epstein has been locked up at the MCC since he was arrested July 6 after arriving back in the United States from France.He asked to be released on bail and put on house arrest at his $77 million Manhattan mansion, offering to pay for security cameras and armed guards and to let a “trustee” live there with him.But U.S. District Judge Richard Berman shot down the request earlier this week, finding that Epstein was a flight risk and unable to control his sexual urges. Epstein’s team has since filed papers to appeal that decision.Barket said both his client and Epstein are in the Special Housing Unit, where restrictions compound what he described as “inhumane” conditions across the entire MCC—including insect and rodent infestation, dirty linens, and broken equipment.“The whole place is a disaster from top to bottom,” Barket said.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.

Border Patrol Arrests 7 Migrants Who Entered Maine Illegally From Canada

United States Border Patrol arrested 7 migrants on Tuesday who allegedly crossed illegally into Maine from Canada.Maine State Police pulled over a vehicle in Bridgewater, near the Houlton port of entry on Maine’s northern border, that was reportedly seen “crossing the center line on four separate occasions,” according to a Border Patrol affidavit, the County reports.The vehicle was reportedly transporting eight individuals at the time of apprehension. Border Patrol agents arrived on scene shortly after at approximately 10 p.m. to help with linguistic translation.Four of the vehicle’s passengers were charged with a misdemeanor for entering the United States illegally, and three others were charged with felonies for illegal re-entry, according to Border Patrol. Illegal re-entry is a class E felony that is punishable by “a fine under title 18, imprisonment for not more than 2 years,” according to the Department of Justice.All of those arrested were confirmed to be Mexican nationals, according to the County.

House panel approves subpoenas for Trump officials' private emails

The U.S. House of Representatives' Oversight Committee, which is led Democrats, voted 23-16 along party lines to allow its chairman, Elijah Cummings, to issue the subpoenas to White House officials including President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner. “The Committee has obtained direct evidence that multiple high-level White House officials have been violating the Presidential Records Act by using personal email accounts, text messaging services, and even encrypted applications for official business—and not preserving those records in compliance with federal law," Cummings said in a statement.

US warship sails through Taiwan Strait, China 'concerned'

An American warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait, the US Navy and Taiwanese authorities said Thursday, triggering concern in Beijing. The transit came as China, which views Taiwan as a renegade province, unveiled a defence white paper Wednesday stressing its willingness to use force to thwart any move towards the self-ruled island's independence, and accusing the United States of undermining global stability. According to the US Navy's Seventh Fleet, the USS Antietam, a guided-missile cruiser, conducted a routine transit through the narrow waterway separating the Chinese mainland and Taiwan during July 24-25.

27 children removed from Montana treatment facility over allegations of 'egregious' abuse

The allegations include physical and psychological abuse and assault at the Ranch for Kids in Rexford, Montana health officials said Tuesday.

Father of slain Mississippi student Ally Kostial shares heartbreaking photo on day of her vigil

The father of murdered University of Mississippi student Ally Kostial took to Facebook to share a photo of his daughter taken when she was a small child.

Woman shoots 2 Israeli men to death at Mexico shopping mall

A woman wearing a blond wig disguise fatally shot two Israeli men at a restaurant in an upscale Mexico City shopping mall, and authorities said Thursday they were investigating links to organized crime. Authorities said the woman and another man sat down Wednesday at a table near the victims at a restaurant in the Plaza Artz mall. Ulises Lara, spokesman for the city prosecutor's office, said a total of four suspects were involved in either the killing, logistics or getaway.

Syrian girls captured in viral photo fight for survival

The picture went viral on social media networks: two dust-covered Syrian girls, trapped in rubble, grab their baby sister from her shirt as she dangles from a bombed-out building. The picture was captured on Wednesday by Bashar al-Sheikh, a photographer working with local news website SY24, moments after warplanes pummelled the town of Ariha in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib. Of the three girls shown in the photo, one is dead and two are fighting to stay alive, after regime airstrikes hit their home, said Dr. Ismail, who treated the victims in a nearby hospital but asked that his last name not be revealed.

Flags of inconvenience: noose tightens around Iranian shipping

LONDON/DUBAI/PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Somewhere on its journey from the waters off Iran, around Africa's southern tip and into the Mediterranean, the Grace 1 oil tanker lost the flag under which it sailed and ceased to be registered to Panama. Iran later claimed it as its own. The ship carrying 2 million barrels of Iranian crude was seized by British Royal Marines off Gibraltar, raising tensions in the Gulf where Iran detained a UK-flagged ship in retaliation.

US teenager detained at border lost 26 pounds in a month: 'It was inhumane how they treated us'

A US teenager who was detained by border agents for nearly a month, has detailed bleak conditions during his stay, saying: “They were not treating us humanely.”Francisco Galicia, who was born in Texas, was detained at a customs and border agency (CBP) checkpoint in Falfurrias, Texas on June 27 while travelling with his brother Marlon, a 17-year-old who was born in Mexico, who was also detained. After two days of detention, Marlon signed a voluntary deportation form and was released to his grandmother. Francisco, who was finally released this week, said he almost did the same thing. “It was inhumane how they treated us,” he told the Dallas Morning News. “It got to the point where I was ready to sign a deportation paper just to not be suffering there anymore. I just needed to get out of there.”Francisco, 18, lost 26 pounds during the 23 days he was detained at the CBP facility due to lack of food. He was not allowed to shower for the duration of his stay, but was given a shower once he was moved to an immigration enforcement agency (ICE) facility. “It was to clean up but the dirt, but you couldn’t get rid of it because so much time had passed since we showered,” he said.He and 60 other men were held in an overcrowded holding area where they slept on the floor; some were forced to sleep on the restroom area’s floor. They were given only aluminium foil blankets.Francisco said ticks bit some of the men. Some were also “very sick”, he said, but afraid to ask for a doctor, since CBP officers told them their stay would start over if they did.“It’s one thing to see these conditions on TV and in the news,” he said. “It’s another to go through them.”The horrifying saga began when officers at the Falfurrias checkpoint questioned his citizenship status. The teenager also had a Mexican tourist visa his mother had obtained for him when he was a minor and she feared she would not be able to legally travel across the border with him.But Francisco says the officers sounded the validity of his identification documents even before knowing that. “I told them we had rights and asked to make a phone call. But they told us, ‘You don’t have rights to anything,’” he told CNN. “They didn’t believe me. I kept telling them over and over, and they kept saying my documents were fake, and they were going to deport me.They threatened me with charges – charges about falsifying documents. Felonies. They kept asking how it was possible for me to not know where I was from.“Powerless. That’s how I felt,” he continued. “How with all this proof that I was giving them could they hold me?” Now, he wants to use his experience to shed light on the sordid conditions enacted by the Trump administration in the camps. “Right now, I’m in a place where I can help those who are still in there – so people can see how they’re treated, and change the way they’re treated,” he said. “I am the eyes and ears of what’s happening in there. I can talk. They can’t do what I’m doing.”

Bombing halts pumping on Colombia's Transandino pipeline

Colombia's state-run oil company Ecopetrol said on Friday it halted pumping on the Transandino pipeline after a bombing in southwestern Narino province.

from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/2YcWx8s

Poll: Democrats Increasingly Think DOJ Meddled in Mueller Probe

Democrats have become increasingly suspicious that the special counsel's investigation into Russia's influence on the 2016 election was seriously hampered by the Trump administration's Justice Department since the final report on the probe was released in April, according to a new poll.Overall, about 37 percent of voters said they have confidence that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe was conducted "very fairly" or "somewhat fairly," while 42 said the investigation was conducted “not too fairly” or “not fairly at all," according to the most recent Politico/Morning Consult poll.Those numbers reflect more suspicion about the probe than in April when Mueller's final report was first released to lawmakers and the public. At that point, 46 percent of voters considered the investigation fair, while 29 percent thought it had been carried out unfairly.Since then the number of Democratic voters who think the investigation was compromised spiked 15 percentage points, while the number who think the probe was conducted fairly sank 9 points. Republicans have also grown slightly more skeptical of the investigation, 6 percent more saying they have less faith in it now.The poll also found that voters are split on whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians during the 2016 election, 42 percent saying the campaign did collude and 41 percent disagreeing. A large majority of Democrats, 72 percent, said they think the campaign did indeed engage in collusion.Mueller is set to testify on the investigation and his report before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees Wednesday morning.The poll surveyed 1992 voters between July 19 and 21.