Bill O’Reilly: 'If Joe Biden is elected president ... he has to be impeached'

Disgraced former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly shared his dream of what should happen if Joe Biden were to win the Democratic nomination and then defeat President Trump in 2020. “If Joe Biden is elected president, the day after he’s sworn in, he has to be impeached," said O'Reilly.

5 Killed, Several Injured in Shooting at Airbnb Halloween Party in California. Here's What to Know

The mass shooting at a Halloween party at an Airbnb in Orinda, Calif. left five people dead and several others injured.

2020 Vision: If a single speech can shake up the Democratic race, it might happen in Iowa

Will any of this year’s candidates pull an Obama at the newly named Liberty and Justice Celebration?

Despite break in winds, Maria Fire north of Los Angeles becomes fast-moving blaze, prompting evacuations

Despite a break in the Santa Ana winds, the Maria Fire exploded overnight north of Los Angeles, prompting evacuations.

Airbnb bans 'party houses' after Halloween shooting in California

Police were still searching for the shooter who opened fire on Thursday night at the costume party, which authorities say was attended by more than 100 people at the house in Orinda, less than 20 miles (30 km) east of San Francisco. The party host rented the home through Airbnb and told its owner she was holding a reunion for only a dozen people, the San Francisco Chronicle reported citing the owner, Michael Wang.

The Latest: Some allowed to return home amid California fire

Authorities have lifted evacuation orders for a farm community as firefighters make progress on a large wildfire in Southern California. Ventura County officials allowed residents of Somis to return home Saturday morning after firefighters contained 20% of the Maria Fire, which has burned nearly 15 square miles (39 sq. kilometers) and continues to threaten more than 2,500 homes and other buildings. The fire began Thursday during what had been expected to be the tail end of Santa Ana winds that fanned destructively across Southern California.

23 ISIS wives start repatriation case in Netherlands

Lawyers for 23 women who joined the Islamic State group from the Netherlands asked a judge on Friday to order the Netherlands to repatriate them and their 56 young children from camps in Syria. The women and children were living in "deplorable conditions" in the al-Hol camp in northern Syria, lawyer Andre Seebregts said in court.

UAW union president takes leave of absence under cloud of U.S. federal probe

The president of the United Auto Workers union, who has been linked https://ift.tt/30HV3Ab to an ongoing corruption probe by U.S. federal officials, has taken a leave of absence, the union said on Saturday in a statement. Gary Jones' leave of absence, which follows a vote by the executive board, will be effective beginning Sunday, the UAW said. "The UAW is fighting tooth and nail to ensure our members have a brighter future.

Kamala Harris Shuts Three of Four N.H. Offices: Campaign Update

(Bloomberg) -- Kamala Harris is closing three of her four campaign offices in New Hampshire, with only Manchester and a slimmed-down staff remaining, said an aide familiar with the decision.All of the California senator’s field organizers in the Granite State will be laid off, a major blow to her campaign. New Hampshire holds the second Democratic nominating contest for 2020, after Iowa.The aide said it was part of Harris’s reallocation of resources to Iowa. The shift was forced by financial constraints as her campaign struggles for traction.Harris is campaigning in Iowa on Saturday, including an appearance at an NAACP forum in Des Moines focused on economic progress within African American communities.Biden Slugs Back at Warren Over ‘Wrong Primary’ (1:20 p.m.)Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden slugged back at Elizabeth Warren’s comment that he’s running in the wrong party’s primary after his criticism of her Medicare for All plan, arguing that his opponent’s suggestion that he’s thinking too small is unfair.“The press wants very much and some of the opponents want to very much characterize views -- whether you’re thinking big, and if you’re criticizing something that you think is outlandish, you must be a Republican,” Biden said at an event marking the opening of a field office in Des Moines, Iowa. “The vision I have for this country, there’s nothing small about it. It is like going to the moon,” he said.Biden was insistent Saturday that he’s been bold enough in advocating for adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act to ensure universal health care coverage. “The plans we have, and you’re going to help me implement, are bolder than any plans that have come across, come along,” he told supporters.Biden was interrupted In the middle of his riff by a small group of climate activists demanding that his campaign not take oil and gas money. Before he got a chance to answer, they marched out of the office. Once they were gone, he said, “This is what is going on that’s wrong with our party right now. That everything is taken in contexts that are not accurate.” -- Jennifer EpsteinDemocrats Sue Three States Over Ballot Position (6:30 a.m.)The Democratic National Committee accused three Republican-run states of favoring GOP candidates by listing their names first on the ballot, and filed lawsuits against those states on Friday.Laws in Arizona, Georgia and Texas require the Republican candidate for president to be listed first in most or all precincts. Many other states require election officials to rotate the order from place to eliminate what’s called “position bias.”The lawsuits, filed in federal courts in Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta on behalf of Democratic voters in those states, says that the ballot position laws give Republicans an “unfair, arbitrary, and artificial electoral advantage to Republican Party candidates.”Representatives for the three secretaries of state named in the lawsuits did not return telephone calls or did not immediately comment. -- Gregory KorteCOMING UPOn Saturday, seven Democratic presidential candidates -- including Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg -- will attend a fish fry in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, hosted by freshman Democratic Representative Abby Finkenauer.\--With assistance from Gregory Korte and Jennifer Epstein.To contact the reporter on this story: Sahil Kapur in Washington at skapur39@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Steve GeimannFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

British teenager was suffering from PTSD when she withdrew Cyprus gang rape claim, court hears

A British teenager accused of lying about being gang raped in Cyprus may have retracted her claims because she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, her lawyer said at a hearing on Friday. The woman, 19, is charged with public mischief for allegedly inventing the attack at an Ayia Napa hotel on July 17. She maintains she was raped by up to a dozen Israeli tourists, but pressured by Cypriot police to make a retraction statement 10 days later. Prosecutors say the teenager willingly wrote and signed the document. On Friday, chartered consultant psychologist Dr Christine Tizzard gave evidence by videolink from Portsmouth Crown Court. Speaking after the hearing in Larnaca, lawyer Michael Polak, director of the group Justice Abroad - which is assisting the teenager - said she was diagnosed as having underlying PTSD, which was reignited by the alleged attack. Lawyer Michael Polak of Justice Abroad is supporting the teengaer Credit: KATIA CHRISTODOULOU/EPA-EFE/REX "We were pleased with the evidence from Dr Tizzard, which confirms what we have been saying," he said. "She explained in simple words to the court the ways in which PTSD affects someone who is put in a difficult situation... Their fight or flight reflex would kick in and they would do anything to get out of that situation... "We look forward to the rest of the evidence, which we say supports the teenager's case that she was put under enormous pressure to sign the retraction statement." The case was adjourned following the psychologist's evidence and a date for forensic linguist Dr Andrea Nini to give evidence is expected to be set on Monday. He is expected to say it was "highly unlikely" that the retraction statement was written by a native English speaker, supporting the teenager's case that it was dictated to her by a Cypriot police officer. The incident allegedly took place in the resort town of Ayia Napa Credit: Amir MAKAR / AFP Her lawyers want Judge Michalis Papathanasiou to rule the statement is inadmissible as evidence. The teenager was a week into a working holiday before she was due to start university when she alleged she was raped by the group of young Israeli men, but was then herself accused of making it up. She spent more than a month in prison before she was granted bail at the end of August, but cannot leave the island, having surrendered her passport. She could face up to a year in jail and a 1,700 euro (£1,500) fine if she is found guilty. The 12 Israelis arrested over the alleged attack returned home after they were released. The teenager's family have set up a crowdfunding page asking for money for legal costs, which has raised more than £40,000.

US military calls on Kurdish forces in northeast Syria

US military vehicles Saturday entered a Kurdish-held area in northeastern Syria and met with officials, AFP correspondents and a local source said, in the second such visit since an announced US pullout from the Turkish border area. Beige-coloured armoured vehicles flying the American flag pulled up at the headquarters of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces outside the city of Qamishli. A US-led coalition has for years backed the SDF in fighting the Islamic State group, but the announcement of an American withdrawal triggered a deadly Turkish invasion against the Kurds on October 9.

Brazil police arrest man said to be one of world's most prolific human traffickers

Brazilian federal police said they have arrested Saifullah Al-Mamun, born in Bangladesh and considered by authorities one of the world's most prolific human traffickers. In an operation conducted on Thursday after collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Brazilian police arrested members of a group allegedly implicated in a large scheme of smuggling people into the United States. Several arrests were made in Sao Paulo, where Al-Mamun was living, and in three other Brazilian cities.

Assistant scoutmaster charged with sexually abusing boy, 12

An assistant scoutmaster on Long Island has been charged with sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy at several Boy Scouts of America retreats and meetings. Nassau County police arrested 26-year-old Jonathan Spohrer at his home in North Bellmore on Thursday after an extensive investigation, the department said. Police said Spohrer abused the boy during Boy Scouts retreats at several locations in New York state from January through November of 2018.

Maria Fire broke out minutes after utility company re-energized high-voltage power line

Southern California Edison says it turned power back on minutes before the Maria Fire erupted nearby in Ventura County

Iran unveils new anti-US murals at former embassy

Iran on Saturday unveiled new anti-American murals on the walls of the former US embassy as Tehran prepares to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the storming of what it labels the "den of spies". The new murals -- mainly painted in white, red and blue, the colours of the US flag -- were unveiled by Major General Hossein Salami, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, at the former mission turned museum. A third showed the American Global Hawk drone that was shot down by Iran in June over the Strait of Hormuz, with bats flying out of it.

A union for 28,000 American Airlines cabin crew has told Boeing's CEO its members are scared of getting back on the 737 Max

Lori Bassani, who leads the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, wrote to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg about the 737 Max crisis.

Greta Thunberg says meeting with Trump 'would be a waste of time'

The Swedish teenage climate activist says she wouldn’t want to meet with the president even if given the opportunity.

Texas woman says mother's gynecologist used his sperm to conceive her after submitting DNA to Ancestry.com

A woman in Texas has filed a lawsuit against a Colorado gynecologist accusing him of using his own sperm to artificially inseminate women without their consent.

Donald Trump's 'Take the Oil' Strategy in Syria Is a Mistake

"A prominent and longstanding theme in the ideology and propaganda of terrorist groups rooted in the Arab Muslim world—including al-Qaeda and ISIS—is that the United States and the West are out to plunder the resources of Muslims. Such groups violently oppose U.S. troops in Muslim countries partly because they are seen as furthering the plundering mission."

California wildfires: Ignition of Maria fire spotted on camera

The moment a wildfire burst into life and began to spread in California has been caught on camera.The Maria Fire has burned some 15 square miles and prompted evacuation orders for nearly 11,000 people since it began Thursday evening.

5 Killed, Several Injured in Shooting at Airbnb Halloween Party in California. Here's What to Know

The mass shooting at a Halloween party at an Airbnb in Orinda, Calif. left five people dead and several others injured.

Hezbollah TV channel says Twitter accounts suspended

The television station of Lebanon's powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah protested Saturday that most of its Twitter accounts had been suspended. Al-Manar accused the US-based social media platform of giving in to "political pressures". "There is no place on Twitter for illegal terrorist organisations and violent extremist groups," a Twitter spokesperson told AFP.

Democrats are in danger of losing the impeachment spin battle

On Thursday, House Democrats gave their Republican colleagues exactly what they've been requesting for the past month, passing a resolution that outlines the procedure going forward for the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. On one hand, the move represents a substantive step forward in the case against the president, the formalization on a broad scale -- the measure passed by 36 votes -- of what has, up until this point, often felt more theoretical than real.Another way to look at the House bill, however, is as yet another victory for Republicans in their ongoing efforts to delay, discredit, and distract from the charges against Trump. The Republican demands that Democrats set down their process for the impeachment inquiry and officially ratify it -- something that Congress is not required to do -- created just another hurdle Democrats felt they had to clear. In a letter explaining the resolution to her Democratic colleagues earlier this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear that the White House's argument that the impeachment inquiry was unauthorized until the House voted on it had "no merit." But that didn't keep Pelosi from rounding up Democrats to vote on exactly that on Thursday.Many will argue this is all part of Pelosi's shrewd strategy, her deft understanding of how to build an overwhelming prosecution against Trump in a way Republicans will find difficult to argue with. But this have-it-both-ways approach by Democrats has up to this point been easy for Republicans to exploit, not least because there's no impeachment process they'll ever deem legitimate.That much was evident in these latest events. As Jim Newell at Slate pointed out, as soon as House Democrats released the text of the resolution that Republicans demanded, those same Republicans "moved to their next phase of attacking the process." The new GOP talking points now describe the impeachment investigation as "broken" and "tainted" -- no matter that Democrats have been following standards established by House Republicans in 2015, or that the new resolution gives Trump more of a say than Clinton or Nixon ever got.While I've already argued it was right for Pelosi and the Democratic caucus to not rush to impeachment, it's still worth considering how this prolonged process has played to Republicans' advantage. Even as Pelosi ploddingly slow-walked to the impeachment inquiry, Republicans effectively railed that Democrats were pursuing a breakneck "rush to judgment," as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called it back in September. And now that we are finally here, Pelosi's new indication that she wants the impeachment process to wrap up quickly seems likely to only substantiate Republican talking points.It's a maddening strategy considering how much evidence there is against the president. Pelosi recently told The Atlantic that the case against Trump would be "ironclad" once it went forward. But her acknowledgment in that same interview that "we've had enough [evidence] for a very long time," raises questions about why it took so long to get here.Pelosi is right. The case for impeaching Trump is robust. Long before we knew he had pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden's son in exchange for receiving congressionally appropriated military aid -- something Trump has admitted to doing -- he was racking up a long list of impeachable offenses.But amassing insurmountable evidence against the president still won't convince hardly any Republicans, whether politicians or voters. Earlier this week, National Security Council official Alexander Vindman provided damning testimony against Trump's illegal actions with Ukraine, the sort of clear evidence that alone would bring down any other president. Instead, the conservative Washington Examiner laughed off Vindman as "the 1 millionth witness" to come forward, demonstrating how easily conservative media can spin the embarrassment of riches of evidence Democrats have against the president into just an embarrassment for Democrats. Tellingly, the Washington Examiner concluded Vindman had done "nothing more than corroborate the things we already knew." In a normal world, corroboration should lead to conviction. But in our Trump-twisted reality, it's just written off as ho-hum old news. Nothing new to see here, folks. Thus, the long line of witnesses and the mountains of evidence -- the very stuff Pelosi thought she needed to assemble in order to go forward -- instead becomes proof of a crazed and politically-motivated "witch hunt" against the president.All of this demonstrates that there's no winning trying to play by the rules with a party that has shown, in their embrace and defense of Trump, how little they care about following the rules themselves. That doesn't mean Democrats should play dirty either. Someone has to adhere to the rule of law for this democratic experiment we know as the United States to continue. But it might mean Pelosi and the Democrats think less about how Republicans will respond to impeachment proceedings and more about how to best control and drive the narrative for the American public.Conservative pundits are busy now suggesting that there's no public consensus when it comes to impeachment, characterizing the move for impeachment as a harebrained obsession by a small, radical fringe. That message works well in the echo chambers of conservative media, like Fox News. But it's not accurate. A majority of Americans support removing Trump from office. Pelosi and Democrats must keep that American majority -- not the Republican minority in the House -- in mind as they proceed.They might also take note of a sharp signal from baseball fans earlier this week. On Sunday night, the crowd at game five of the World Series greeted President Trump's presence with deafening chants of "lock him up." Commentary on the night quickly divided into predictable interpretations of the chants representing either an unfortunate show of disrespect for the presidency or a liberal crowd's understandable disgust towards Trump. But it might be seen as something else also: citizens resoundingly imploring Democrats to do their job.Democrats won't hit a home run against this president. Senate Republicans will make sure of that. But it's vital that they not strike out while the bases are loaded.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.

Energy Secretary Perry asked to testify in Trump impeachment inquiry

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry and White House budget office acting Director Russell Vought have been asked to testify next week in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, an official working on the inquiry said on Friday.

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

Bill O’Reilly: 'If Joe Biden is elected president ... he has to be impeached'

Disgraced former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly shared his dream of what should happen if Joe Biden were to win the Democratic nomination and then defeat President Trump in 2020. “If Joe Biden is elected president, the day after he’s sworn in, he has to be impeached," said O'Reilly.

New California fire grows as crews make headway on other blazes

A new wildfire in California grew to nearly 9,000 acres (3,700 hectares) on Friday, sending thousands of people fleeing and further stretching resources in a state struggling with a spate of wildfires this season. The so-called Maria Fire erupted Thursday evening in Ventura County, 65 miles (105 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles, and burned out of control through the night, driven by high winds and threatening 2,300 structures. Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said fire crews had been thwarted by people flying drones in the area.

Border wall, impeachment battle imperil budget progress

The Senate passed a long-overdue, $209 billion bundle of bipartisan spending bills Thursday, but a bitter fight over funding demanded by President Donald Trump for border fencing imperils broader Capitol Hill efforts to advance $1.4 trillion worth of annual Cabinet agency budgets. The 84-9 vote sends the measure into House-Senate negotiations but doesn't much change the big picture. There has been little progress, if any, on the tricky trade-offs needed to balance Democratic demands for social programs with President Donald Trump's ballooning border wall demands.

The ‘Whimpering’ Terrorist Only Trump Seems to Have Heard

By BY PETER BAKER AND ERIC SCHMITT from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/33eFwsY

As Government Officials Testify Against Trump, Critics Question Why an Author Stays Anonymous

By BY ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2WzQKWd

Guantánamo Testimony Details Initial Handling of Prisoners Accused of Plotting 9/11

By BY CAROL ROSENBERG from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/32dFG2s

The Latest: PG&E equipment sparked 3 Bay Area fires

Northern California officials say Pacific Gas & Electric Co. equipment caused three fires that broke out in San Francisco suburbs earlier this week. The Contra Costa County Fire Protection District confirmed Friday that the utility's power lines sparked a pair of fires Sunday in Lafayette east of San Francisco. One of the fires destroyed the Lafayette Tennis Club.

A union for 28,000 American Airlines cabin crew has told Boeing's CEO its members are scared of getting back on the 737 Max

Lori Bassani, who leads the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, wrote to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg about the 737 Max crisis.

Katie Hill delivers scathing resignation speech after Trump impeachment vote: 'I am leaving because of a double standard'

Katie Hill has unloaded with a scathing resignation speech, in which she claimed she is the victim of a gendered "double standard" in society that has punished her for her sexual life even as Donald Trump remains president in spite of bragging "about his sexual predation".Ms Hill, who was elected to Congress in 2018 as a part of a wave of women Democrats who took office that year, delivered her final speech in the House just after participating in a historic vote to formally launch the impeachment inquiry into the president over his alleged effort to force Ukraine to investigate a potential chief political foe.

Biden stumbles over words, struggles to deliver his message to voters

Joe Biden was making an impassioned case for protecting immigrants in the country illegally one recent Sunday when he abruptly stopped himself. “There’s many more things, but —” he said before trailing off at a union forum. Six months into his presidential campaign, Biden is still delivering uneven performances on the debate stage and on the campaign trail in ways that can undermine his message.

The Latest: Man accused of arson in California wildfire

Authorities say a man was arrested and accused of arson after a crew responded to a report of a wildfire in Northern California. A CalFire statement said engine crews were able to quickly contain the small fire in the Sonoma County community of Geyserville and identified a potential suspect. Authorities reported progress Wednesday in battling the Kincade fire in Sonoma County that started last week outside of Geyserville and forced the evacuation of the entire community, home to about 900 people.

Troops, armored vehicles enter Syria to protect oil fields from ISIS

The Pentagon moved troops and armored vehicles into Syria Thursday to protect oil fields from exploitation by ISIS.

Exxon, Chevron Begin Pushing Back Against Warren’s Fracking Ban

(Bloomberg) -- America’s two biggest oil companies are starting to push back against the fracking ban touted by the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, which may become one of the most consequential flashpoints for energy markets during the election campaign.Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. executives spoke out publicly against the proposals for the first time on Friday, saying they would shift profits from crude production from the U.S. to other countries, and may increase prices for consumers while doing nothing to reduce oil demand or greenhouse-gas emissions.It’s a line of attack that’s likely to feature heavily in debates in the year ahead as the energy industry and Republicans seek to counter the Democratic Party’s green wing. To be sure, whoever gets elected next year will find it difficult to end fracking. Presidential powers to enact a ban only extend to federal lands, something that would be certain to face immediate legal challenges. A wider restriction would need to go through Congress.“Any efforts to ban fracking or restrict supply will not remove demand for the resource,” Neil Hansen, Exxon’s vice president of investor relations, said on a conference call with analysts. “If anything it will shift the economic benefit away from the U.S. to another country, and a potentially impact the price of that commodity here and globally.”Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, two front-runners in the race to be the Democratic candidate, are keen to stop America’s reliance on fossil fuels, and they also want to end what they say is Washington’s subservience to corporate interests. They also know how to hit Exxon and Chevron where it hurts. Five years ago, both companies produced little crude from fracking and might have even have benefited from a ban if it led to higher oil prices. But now fracking is the fastest-growing part of their global businesses and a key profit driver.Hydraulic fracturing of shale rock is pushing U.S. oil production to record highs, touching 12.4 million barrels a day in August. Exxon said Friday its output from the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico had boomed by more than 70% in the third quarter from a year earlier. Chevron, a bigger Permian producer, saw its output there climb 35%.That wave of supply has ensured lower gasoline and energy prices for domestic consumers, bolstered economic growth for states such as Texas and North Dakota, and restored the country to ranks of the world’s major crude exporters.“It’s really unlocked an economic huge economic benefit for the country, as well as for the companies involved,” Jay Johnson, the boss of Chevron’s upstream business, said during the company’s earnings conference call.But fracking also has costs, particularly in terms of the climate. Cheap fossil fuels typically mean people use more of them, causing higher emissions. Hansen said that while Exxon shares concerns about climate change, “there are more effective policies” such as a revenue-neutral carbon tax and technology initiatives.To contact the reporter on this story: Kevin Crowley in Houston at kcrowley1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net, Joe CarrollFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Ex-beauty queen accuses former Gambia president of rape

A Gambian former beauty queen on Thursday accused former President Yahya Jammeh of raping her to punish her for rejecting his marriage proposal, in evidence to the country's truth and reconciliation commission. "What he wanted to do was to teach me a lesson, what he wanted to do is manifest his ego," Fatou Jallow said. "There were words like 'who do you think you are?', that he is the president and that he gets any woman that he wants," Jallow told Gambia's Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC).

Beto O’Rourke Drops Out of 2020 Race

REUTERSFormer Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) is ending his presidential campaign after struggling for months to gain sustained momentum, as the crowded Democratic primary thins out less than 100 days before the Iowa caucus. “Though it is difficult to accept, it is clear to me now that this campaign does not have the means to move forward successfully,” O’Rourke wrote in a Medium post announcing his move on Friday. “My service to the country will not be as a candidate or as the nominee. Acknowledging this now is in the best interests of those in the campaign; it is in the best interests of this party as we seek to unify around a nominee; and it is in the best interests of the country.”Rumors about O’Rourke’s candidacy began shortly after his Senate campaign concluded. But for months, he put off making a decision, leaving top Democratic operatives who may have signed on with him to look elsewhere. The entrance into the race of South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, perceived to occupy the same lane for a young, fresh-faced outsider, appeared to further dull the allure of O’Rourke’s bid. When he finally launched he did so with much fanfare. A Vanity Fair article timed to his announcement marketed his bid as a second chance at political greatness for the former Texas congressman after failing to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. O’Rourke was featured on the magazine cover’s standing on a dirt road, outside a pick-up truck with the words, “Beto’s Choice” written in bold over his left shoulder and the quote, “I want to be in it. Man, I was born to be in it.” And he was, for a few weeks, anyway.  In the first 18 days of his candidacy, O’Rourke raised an impressive $9.4 million. But his star began to fall as quickly as it rose. A lack of fully formed policy positions and a series of lackluster debate appearances contributed to his failure to harness the same energy that that was seen during his Senate campaign. A mass shooting at a Walmart in his hometown of El Paso took him off the campaign trail briefly in August as he mourned with his community. When he returned to the race, O’Rourke, 47, called for a mandatory buyback program of assault-style weapons, which ignited loud applause during a Democratic primary debate in his native Texas in September. Days later, his unofficial campaign slogan became “hell yes”—a line from his debate performance that if he were elected president, he would buy back such weapons. Beto O’Rourke’s Finest Hour Came Off the Presidential Campaign Trail, in El PasoWhile the move helped rally some progressives in key voting states, his promise proved to be politically risky and was met with some skepticism among his fellow Democrats and guns rights activists, who argued he was giving fuel to Republicans by calling for such drastic measures. By the end of his campaign, O’Rourke was at approximately 2 percent nationally. And while he made his plans to withdraw from the presidential race public on Friday, he has consistently ruled out running for any other office in 2020, including challenging Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). “Oh no, Beto just dropped out of race for President despite him saying he was “born for this.” I don’t think so!,” President Donald Trump tweeted on Friday afternoon. Just hours before he suspended his bid, his campaign released official plans to file for the New Hampshire primary and return to the state on Nov. 8. “Beto will be joined by local supporters at the New Hampshire State House for the filing event,” the release reads. Ultimately, O’Rourke pledged to help elect the party’s nominee to take on Trump in the general election. “We will work to ensure that the Democratic nominee is successful in defeating Donald Trump in 2020,” he wrote. “I can tell you firsthand from having the chance to know the candidates, we will be well served by any one of them, and I’m going to be proud to support whoever that nominee is.”Beto Going Bust: The Once Great Dem Hope Is Among the Many 2020ers Struggling for CashRead 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.

Bad news for Boeing: Company says more 737 NGs found to have wing cracks

The FAA ordered the inspections in 737 NG's that have flown many thousands of flghts

Democrats' decision to televise Trump impeachment hearings could prove politically perilous

Democrats in the U.S. Congress took a major step toward impeaching President Donald Trump this week when they agreed on the rules for publicly televised hearings after weeks of testimony behind closed doors. Leaders of the Democratic-run U.S. House of Representatives believe that putting the main witnesses on TV will convince independent voters and other doubters that Trump was wrong in asking the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on a political rival, Democrat Joe Biden, who hopes to be the candidate to oust Trump in the 2020 election. While Republicans and the president face great political risk in the hearings, so do Democrats.

Police officer retires after far-right group ties revealed

A Connecticut police officer has retired after a civil rights organization raised concerns about his membership in a far-right group known for engaging in violent clashes at political rallies, a town official said Friday. Officer Kevin P. Wilcox retired from the East Hampton Police Department on Oct. 22, according to Town Manager David Cox. Wilcox had been an East Hampton police officer since 1999.

Maskless Merkel braves severe Delhi smog

German Chancellor Angela Merkel got a toxic welcome to India on Friday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi treated her to a military parade in New Delhi's severely polluted air. Ignoring medical advice to the choking megacity's 20 million inhabitants, Merkel and Modi reviewed a guard of honour at the presidential palace without pollution masks. The European Union's longest-serving leader is due to step down in 2021.

Syria's Assad calls Trump the 'most transparent president'

Syrian President Bashar Assad on Thursday hailed Donald Trump as the “best American president” for his “transparency” regarding his stated desire to maintain U.S. control of the Middle Eastern nation’s lucrative oil fields. “I tell you, he’s the best American president. Not because his policies are good, but because he’s the most transparent president,” Assad said in a state television interview, according to a translation of his remarks by NBC News.

Barack Obama thinks 'woke' kids want purity. They don't: they want progress

The former president took black and progressive movements to task, without understanding his own failure to deliver change • Call-out culture: how to get it right (and wrong)Former president Barack Obama speaks with actress, model, and activist Yara Shahidi during the Obama Foundation summit in Chicago, on 29 October. Photograph: Ashlee Rezin Garcia/APOn Tuesday, in Chicago, former president Barack Obama joined actress Yara Shahidi in a conversation with activists from his Obama Foundation program. Over the nearly 1.5-hour Obama Foundation summit event, the beloved political figure deployed his trademark charm and humor while discussing the challenges of movement politics.Media attention has focused on a particular part of the conversation – Obama’s criticism of call-out culture and what he perceived as an excessively strident activist left. “We can’t completely remake society in a minute,” Obama said, “so we have to make some accommodations to the existing structures.”He added, “This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids and share certain things with you.”He then made a separate point about social media activism:“If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself. ‘Man you see how woke I was, I called you out.’” But “that’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change.”On its face, these are fair remarks. During the session, both Obama and Shahidi drew from examples of the nonviolent civil rights movement of the early 1960s, which required enormous faith, patience and compromise from its activists in the face of threats to their lives and livelihood. Today, as social justice activists’ material conditions have relatively improved, they will encounter people in positions of power with wealth and access, and they have to learn to work with them on some level, Obama implied. And no, tweeting about a verb probably won’t bring about change.However, we can’t look at Obama’s remarks in a vacuum. From 2016 – as he prepared to exert his influence over who would be the next Democratic nominee – to the present, Obama has often aimed his political critiques at youth-led, black and progressive movements. While upholding the necessity of nuance, Obama himself seems to force these movements into a box, cherry-picking anecdotes for a strawman: that these movements expect purity and demand perfection.> This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke … you should get over that. The world is messy. There are ambiguities> > Barack ObamaIn an early instance of this ideological pattern, at a 2016 youth town hall in London, Obama spoke generally of Black Lives Matter while referring to the handful of activists who confronted the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for her role in criminalizing black youth:“Once you’ve highlighted an issue and brought it to people’s attention … then you can’t just keep on yelling at them. And you can’t refuse to meet because that might compromise the purity of your position. The value of social movements and activism is to get you at the table, get you in the room.”A few months later in a Howard commencement address, with Chicago protests of the police killing of Laquan McDonald not far in the distance, he told the audience of mostly black students about his criminal justice reform as a state senator:“I can say this unequivocally: without at least the acceptance of the police organizations in Illinois, I could never have gotten those [criminal justice reform] bills passed … If you think that the only way forward is to be as uncompromising as possible, you will feel good about yourself, you will enjoy a certain moral purity, but you’re not going to get what you want.”And earlier this year, Obama again raised the amorphous specter of purity politics as people have embraced a leftward policy shift:“One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States … is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, ‘Uh, I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be’ and then we start … a ‘circular firing squad’, where you start shooting at your allies because one of them has strayed from purity on the issues.”Obama has offered these platitudes without much evidence that progressives, Black Lives Matter activists or young voters expect purity. Impatience with the status quo is not purity. A consistent political project is not purity. And being patient has its limits.> For many Americans, the normalization of genuinely leftwing policies is providing the hope and change Obama campaigned onYou can gather from the general direction of Obama’s career, from turning down a route in corporate law to his community organizing, that he has some commitment to social justice. However, his remarks indicate discomfort with more radical tactics in achieving it, reducing them to petulant zeal and not a legitimate strategy among the broad scope of tools needed to dismantle oppressive systems.While discussing Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King as examples of patient progress, he freezes them in time. He failed to note either King’s or Parks’s evolutions. Over time King became more radicalized and questioned integration. When Parks was forced to Detroit to retreat from the backlash against her bus boycott activism, she became a proponent of the Panthers’ self-defense demands and identified Malcolm X as her personal hero.Obama also failed to discuss how, despite King’s strategies negotiating with Lyndon Johnson to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress waffled in passing further civil rights measures until the 1968 riots after King’s assassination, when Congress was forced to swiftly pass the Fair Housing Act.Or go back further: despite the negotiations and patience of abolitionists in the 1800s, it was a steady stream of black uprisings, and an entire civil war, that gave abolition laws and the Emancipation Proclamation any teeth.Obama’s fundamental problem is in confusing a strategy of pragmatism with the strategy. Pragmatic approaches can coexist with more radical politics. But Obama’s pattern of dismissing radical demands altogether shows a serious unwillingness to appreciate the times. Obama is committed to a notion of reaching across the aisle that may have seemed necessary in 2012, but not so much in 2019.Americans in the throes of economic struggle and social oppression have been advised to hold their nose for so long that they’re suffocating. The labor movement is experiencing more worker strikes now than in the past 40 years. We’re in a 1968 moment, not 1963. But Obama has not accepted this evolution.As people demand universal policies for basic needs of shelter, food, freedom from police terror, and economic security, and when wealth inequality is the worst in a century, Obama has to reckon with his own questions. How is his form of calling out – scolding black, young and progressive movements – bringing about change? Is he part of the solution or part of the problem?For many Americans, the normalization of genuinely leftwing policies is providing the hope and change Obama campaigned on. This is the time for him to finally help achieve it.

Brazil authorities zero in on ship suspected of oil spill

After oil mysteriously washed ashore on some 2,100 kilometers (1,300 miles) of Brazil's coastline for two months, authorities on Friday identified a suspect: a Greek-flagged ship belonging to Delta Tankers Ltd. Brazil's government has been striving to investigate the cause of the spill that has hit 286 beaches along the northeast coast and hurt fishing and tourism. The specific source of the oil has remained unclear since it began appearing in early September.

Spain's hosting of COP25 climate summit largely a done deal: Government Source

A formal decision on hosting the summit in Madrid will be taken on Monday in the German city of Bonn, the source said. Chile backed out of hosting the summit, which is aimed at fleshing out details of how to implement the Paris Agreement climate pact, due to a wave of violent protests in the country's capital.