Richmond

Buttigieg, surging in Iowa, has a plan to win it all. Here it is.

Reminder: There are 105 days until the Iowa caucuses and 379 days until the 2020 election. It happened to Kamala Harris during the summer. Now it’s starting to happen to South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who was widely proclaimed one of the “winners” of last week’s Democratic primary debate in Westerville, Ohio.

Trump compares impeachment inquiry to a 'lynching'

While fuming Tuesday morning about the House Democrats’ ongoing impeachment inquiry, President Trump declared the probe a “lynching.”

Murder suspect whose case was catalyst for Hong Kong protests released

A murder suspect whose proposed deportation to Taiwan was a catalyst for massive anti-government protests in Hong Kong was released from prison Wednesday, but despite saying he wants to face justice will remain in the city for now. The law's proposal was prompted by the case of Hong Konger Chan Tong-kai, 20, who is wanted in Taiwan for the 2018 murder of his pregnant girlfriend, Poon Hiu-wing. Chan apologised Wednesday for the great "pain and agony" he had caused Poon's family, saying he hoped his decision to surrender would offer them some relief.

Turkey-U.S. Sparring Escalates as Bank Spurns NY Court

(Bloomberg) -- Turkey is snubbing U.S. demands for one of its biggest banks to face charges that it helped Iran evade sanctions amid escalating tensions fueled by Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria.U.S. prosecutors charged Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS last week with enabling a sanctions-evasion scheme that helped Iran tap $20 billion in frozen foreign oil sales revenue sitting in foreign bank accounts, at a time when the U.S. was trying to maximize leverage over the country in negotiations to abandon its nuclear program.The timing of the indictment led Turkish officials to dismiss the charges as false and politically motivated. The bank and its U.S. lawyers have refused to accept a legal summons or acknowledge U.S. legal authority in the matter. At a hearing Tuesday, no lawyers or executives showed up to represent the bank. A day earlier Turkey named a former executive at the bank, who’d been convicted in the U.S., to head the Istanbul stock exchange.Tensions between Turkey and the U.S. have heightened since President Donald Trump ordered the removal of U.S. troops from northern Syria, opening the door for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to send his forces to attack Kurds in the region.The incursion spurred the U.S. to sanction Turkey with Trump writing a letter last week to Erdogan imploring him not to be a “tough guy” or a “fool.” Erdogan reportedly threw the letter in the trash.Earlier, Trump threatened Turkey in a statement on Twitter.U.S. authorities had been pursuing a criminal case against the bank for at least a year, seeking to impose a massive financial penalty for its role in the scheme. But the case idled for months amid diplomatic wrangling until the charges were filed along with other sanctions last week.Read more on the charges hereFederal prosecutors with the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office have now deemed Halkbank a “fugitive,” and told U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman they may seek contempt sanctions if the bank fails to respond to renewed demands for its presence in court. Halkbank has no employees or offices in the U.S., though it does have a correspondent bank account and shares that are listed and traded as American depositary receipts in U.S. markets.The judge said he would consider the request but also said he wanted to give the bank two weeks to review the matter and reconsider its position.If Turkey’s current position on the issue is any indication, it may take more than two weeks: on Monday, it named a former Halkbank executive who was convicted in a U.S. trial over the sanctions scheme as the new chief executive of the Istanbul stock exchange. The executive, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, was released from U.S. custody in July. In making the appointment, Turkish finance minister Berat Albayrak, who is also Erdogan’s son-in-law, said Atilla was the victim of an “unjust conviction.”(Corrects bank’s name in second paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Berthelsen in New York at cberthelsen1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe SchneiderFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Why Russia Is Angry at America's Missile Defense Systems

Moscow hates THAAD and Aegis Ashore.

Mulvaney defends Trump and makes a new problematic comment

For Mick Mulvaney, the hits just keep on coming. First, President Trump's acting chief of staff stirred up a tempest by acknowledging that the administration had held up aid to Ukraine in part to prod that country to investigate Democrats and the 2016 elections. Then Mulvaney went on television Sunday to defend his boss in effusive terms — and ended up making a new problematic comment.

Charges: Church shooting suspect badly beats public defender

A man charged with attempted murder in a church shooting attacked his public defender during a jailhouse meeting, sending the man to intensive care with severe head injuries and no memory of the beating, according to documents released Tuesday. Dale Holloway, 37, of Manchester, assaulted public defender Michael Davidow on Monday morning at the Valley Street jail in Manchester, New Hampshire, the documents said. In this case, the officer heard a knock and turned to see Holloway standing up and Davidow seated at the table, with his hands over his face and blood dripping onto the floor.

Trump administration says Obamacare plan premiums to fall

Monthly premiums for an average 2020 Obamacare health insurance plan will fall about 4 percent from this year, according to a report released Tuesday by the Trump administration, which has tried to dismantle the program. The Trump administration has cut back on funding for the health insurance program, which was created by President Barack Obama as part of the Affordable Care Act and is often called Obamacare, and has sought to overturn it in Congress and legal courts. Obamacare provides needs-based subsidies to help low-income people buy health insurance.

An Air France flight was forced to turn back in midair when staff found an unattended cellphone that wasn't claimed by any of the passengers

Air France flight 136 to Chicago from Paris landed at Ireland's Shannon Airport, where the police scanned a cellphone found on board.

Turkey and Russia announce deal to withdraw all Kurdish forces from Syrian border

Turkey and Russia announced last night they had reached a deal to avoid a return to fullscale fighting in northeast Syria, just hours before a US-brokered ceasefire between Turkish and Kurdish forces was due to expire.  Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin emerged from marathon talks in Sochi with an agreement that would see all Kurdish forces pull back 30km from the Syrian border over the next six days.  Russia and Turkey will then launch joint military patrols in the area to ensure the deal is being implemented. There was no immediate comment from Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the deal. But if the agreement holds it means Turkey will not restart its military offensive, which many feared would resume as soon as an earlier ceasefire ended at 10pm on Tuesday.   "According to this agreement, Turkey and Russia will not allow any separatist agenda on Syrian territory," Mr Erdoğan said. Turkey and Syria border The talks in Sochi underscore how quickly Russia has replaced the US as the main powerbroker in northeast Syria in the days since Donald Trump, the US president, pulled American forces out of the region. Russian forces will now stand guard in areas that only a few weeks were ago were being patrolled by US troops.  The evening agreement between Russia and Turkey capped a dramatic day as the world counted down the hours until the end of the ceasefire brokered last week by US vice president Mike Pence. The US said earlier in the day that it believed that Kurdish forces had fulfilled their obligations to withdraw from a key 120km stretch of the border and warned Turkey that it would impose sanctions if the Turkish military resumed attacks.  Areas of Rojava and Iraqi Kurdistan before the Turkish offensive The Russian-Turkish deal appears to expand on the earlier American agreement and ensure that Kurdish forces will leave the entire length of the border. Turkey will maintain control in areas it has already seized while Russian and Syrian regime forces will hold the rest of the border. The agreement also states that the Kurds will withdraw from two holdout towns in western Syria, Kobani and Tel Rifaat, which Turkey has been trying to dislodge them from them for more than a year.      Sergey Shoygu, the Russian defence minister, said up to 500 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) members had escaped from Kurdish-run prisons in northeast Syria amid the chaos of the Turkish offensive.  US troops are withdrawing from northeast Syria Credit: DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images Meanwhile, confusion over the US plan to withdraw forces from Syria deepened on Tuesday after Iraq’s government said the retreating troops did not have permission to stay in Iraq. “There is no permission granted for these forces to stay inside Iraq,” the Iraqi military said. The comment appeared to contradict claims by the Pentagon that the roughly 1,000 soldiers would stay in Iraq to continue fighting Isil.  Mark Esper, the US defence secretary, said he would try to smooth the issue during a visit to Iraq and added that the additional American forces did not plan “to stay in Iraq interminably”. There was a bleak reminder of the threat from Isil inside Iraq when it emerged Tuesday that a senior Iraqi police commander had been killed in an ambush by jihadist fighters.  Bashar al-Assad visited his forces in Idlib for the first time in years Bashar al-Assad made a rare trip outside Damascus to visit his troops on the front line in southern Idlib, where Syrian regime forces are battling against jihadists and rebels to take back the last opposition-held province in Syria.   The visit is the first time Assad has stepped foot in the province in years and marks his growing confidence after several weeks of good news for Damascus.  While his forces are make slow progress in Idlib, they were handed an unexpected victory in northeast Syria after Kurdish forces invited them in to confront Turkey.   Assad took aim at the Turkish president during the trip to Idlib, saying: “Erdogan is a thief and is now stealing our land.”  He vowed to continue his assault on Idlib, which is home to around 3 million civilians, and said a victory in the provice would help “decisively end chaos and terrorism in all of Syria”.

There's a reasonable explanation why this mom saw a 'ghost baby' in her sleeping son's crib

This mom's 'ghost baby' baby monitor mix-up has us all laughing. Maritza Elizabeth's post on Facebook has gone viral.

President Trump is right to keep administration members from secret tribunals: Rep. Biggs

Speaker Nancy Pelosi should formalize the impeachment inquiry by a vote of the whole House, writes Rep. Andy Biggs, chairman of the Freedom Caucus

This Is the Robot Tank Russia Used in Syria

(But it didn't fight well.)

Transgender Cyclist Wins Female Cycling World Championship, Claims Only Objections Come from ‘Losers’

Cyclist Rachel McKinnon, a biological male who presents as a woman, won the women’s world championship on Saturday, and set a women’s world record in the qualifying event.McKinnon, a Canadian philosophy professor at the College of Charleston, won the same event in 2018. In a Friday interview with Sky News, McKinnon said that attempts to level the playing field for women’s sports by discriminating against transgender athletes was the equivalent of “denying their human rights.”“All my medical records say female,” McKinnon said. “My doctor treats me as a female person, my racing license says female, but people who oppose my existence still want to think of me as male . . . So, if we want to say, that I believe you’re a woman for all of society, except for this massive central part that is sport, then that’s not fair.”Victoria Hood, a former cycling champion and manager of a British all-female cycling team, challenged McKinnon, telling Sky that “it is not complicated, the science is there and it says that it is unfair. The male body, which has been through male puberty, still retains its advantage, that doesn’t go away. I have sympathy with them. They have a right to do sport but not a right to go into any category they want.”On Saturday, McKinnon issued a press release denouncing Hood for having “an irrational fear of trans women.”After the victory, McKinnon took to Twitter to challenge critics.> Many people claim to support trans women> > But often they only support us until our lives impact them in any meaningful way> > In my case, people literally say they support trans women…but not in sport> > There can be no 'but'> > We are either full and equal women, or not> > We are.> > -- Dr. Rachel McKinnon (@rachelvmckinnon) October 20, 2019On Sunday, McKinnon tweeted “I have yet to meet a real champion who has a problem with trans women. Real champions want stronger competition. If you win because bigotry got your competition banned… you’re a loser.”’

US far-right activists get four years in jail for attacking leftists

Two members of a US far-right group were each sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday for brawling with anti-fascist demonstrators in New York, prosecutors said. The sentencing comes as tensions between white supremacists and leftists simmer in the United States. Maxwell Hare and John Kinsman, members of the Proud Boys group, were found guilty in August by a state court of several counts of attempted assault and rioting.

Former President Carter hospitalized with broken pelvis after fall

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has been hospitalized with a minor pelvic fracture after a fall on Monday night, the Carter Center said on Tuesday, the second such accident this month for the nation's oldest living president. For now, he is being observed and treated at the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in nearby Americus, Georgia, for observation and treatment, it said. Carter, 95, fell at his home earlier this month and required stitches to his face, but resumed work soon after on a homebuilding project for the nonprofit group Habitat for Humanity.

Talks stalled, striking Chicago teachers plan to up the ante

Striking Chicago teachers are preparing for an extended walkout and trying to increase public pressure on Mayor Lori Lightfoot, with a downtown march set for Wednesday around the time the first-term mayor is set to deliver a key speech to the City Council. Chicago Public Schools officials announced that classes would be canceled for a fifth day on Wednesday as negotiators continued talks behind closed doors on Tuesday. Leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union, though, are already looking ahead to Thursday.

A top Marine Corps scout sniper managed to sneak up on his enemy completely naked except for a pair of boots

The nude sniper proved that to truly disappear you don't need clothes, just that you fully embrace the "weirdest thing in the world."

CA Reporter Fired After Damaging Cars At Sacramento Auto Show

How to lose your job in three easy steps.Classic car owners in California already have enough to worry about these days thanks to the fallout of Kevin Hart and his infamuos 'Cuda, but who knew that a group of classics would face any danger while roped off at a major auto show. That's exactly what happened at the Sacramento International Auto Show over the weekend when display cars were climbed on and damaged by Good Day Sacramento reporter, Angel Cardenas. Clarify that, former reporter.During a typical live morning broadcast promoting the auto show, Cardenas snuck behind a roped-off area where a group of classic Ford Thunderbirds – privately owned by members of the Sacramento Classic Thunderbird Club – were on display. To the horror of car lovers, Cardenas starts by jumping onto the trunk of one Thunderbird before attempting to get into another, at which time he opened the door dinging another car. You'd think after that kind of nonsense, Cardenas would have wised up, but he had one more trick up his sleeve as he attempts a Dukes Of Hazzard-style hood slide on a brand-new 2020 Ford Explorer Hybrid.The incidents were all broadcast on live TV, which, as you might expect, resulted in Cardenas being fired. In addition to ridding itself of the incompetent reporter, the station, KMAX TV, removed the footage. Fortunately, on Sacremento-area resident took a video of the broadcast and posted it on Facebook (caution, some language NSFW).h/t: Tire Meets Road Related Articles... * Custom SUVs Built For Auction Stolen From Kids Cancer Charity * Driver Recklessness Cited In Kevin Hart Car Crash

Billionaire Isabel dos Santos Denies Wrongdoing at Sonangol

(Bloomberg) -- Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman and the daughter of former Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, said she did nothing wrong when she was chairwoman of state-owned oil company Sonangol and called a probe into the transfer of millions of dollars from the Luanda-based firm “political vengeance.”Angolan newspaper Novo Jornal reported on Oct. 18 that Angola’s prosecuting authority started a criminal investigation into the transfer of $38 million from Sonangol authorized by dos Santos. Her successor at Sonangol, Carlos Saturnino, accused dos Santos last year of authorizing the transfer to a company in Dubai days after she was dismissed as chairwoman. Saturnino was sacked in May.“To say there was a transfer order after my dismissal is simply false,” dos Santos said in statement emailed on Monday. “The fight against corruption can’t be used to feed an agenda of persecution or a witch hunt.”Dos Santos said the fund-transfer was legal and was made while she was still in her position at Sonangol on Nov. 15, 2017, the day she was dismissed and before a new board was appointed the next day. She said payment instructions were given one or two days before her dismissal.If Angolan authorities are serious about fighting corruption they should investigate why Sonangol had about $20 billion in debt at the end of 2015, before her appointment, and how this money was “used and lost,” said the 46-year-old dos Santos.Dos Santos was dismissed as head of Sonangol amid a crackdown on corruption by Joao Lourenco, who replaced her father as president in 2017. Sonangol, long the main engine of Angola’s oil-focused economy, has been at the center of Lourenco’s anti-graft campaign.(Adds dos Santos’s comment about timing of payment instructions in fourth paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Henrique Almeida in Lisbon at halmeida5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Joao Lima at jlima1@bloomberg.net, Rene Vollgraaff, Alastair ReedFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Donald Trump calls for public identification of Ukraine whistleblower

Railing against impeachment, President Trump called for the identification of the whistleblower who accused him of improperly pressuring Ukraine.

China Is Building 'The Mother of All Bombs': Report

America already has one.

Seattle Public Schools Want to Teach Social Justice in Math Class. That Hurts Minorities.

Seattle’s public-school district has proposed a new math curriculum that would teach its students all about how math has been “appropriated” -- and how it “continues to be used to oppress and marginalize people and communities.”A draft of the curriculum, which was covered in an article in Education Week, would teach students how to “explain how math and technology and/or science are connected and how technology and/or science have (sic) been and continues to be used to oppress and marginalize people and communities of color,” as well as to “identify and teach others about mathematicians* of color in their various communities: schools, neighborhoods, places of worship, businesses, etc.”Education Week reports:> If adopted, its ideas will be included in existing math classes as part of the district’s broader effort to infuse ethnic studies into all subjects across the K-12 spectrum. Tracy Castro-Gill, Seattle’s ethnic studies director, said her team hopes to have frameworks completed in all subjects by June for board approval.> > If the frameworks are approved, teachers would be expected to incorporate those ideas and questions into the math they teach beginning next fall, Castro-Gill said. No districtwide—or mandated—math/ethnic studies curriculum is planned, but groups of teachers are working with representatives of local community organizations to write instructional units for teachers to use if they wish, she said.As strange as it may sound, this proposed curriculum is not the first time that someone has argued for teaching math in this way. In fact, in 2017, an online course developed by Teach for America -- titled “Teaching Social Justice Through Secondary Mathematics” -- instructed how to teach their students how “math has been used as a dehumanizing tool.” Also in 2017, a University of Illinois math-education professor detailed what she saw as some of the more racist aspects of math, claiming that “mathematics itself operates as Whiteness.”I wrote columns about both of these stories that year -- and, at the time, most people likely saw them simply as examples of “fringe” beliefs, confined to only super-progressive, ultra-woke circles. With the announcement of this Seattle proposal, however, we can no longer reassure ourselves that this is the case. Now, the social-justice approach to teaching math has officially entered the mainstream (and taxpayer-funded!) arena.This concerns me, and, believe it or not, that’s actually not because I despise “people and communities of color.” In fact, it’s quite the opposite: It’s because this approach to teaching math will only end up harming the very groups it claims it champions. As The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher notes:> The young people who are going to learn real math are those whose parents can afford to put them in private schools. The public school kids of all races are going to get dumber and dumber.Guess what? Minority students are far more likely to attend public school than whites. In fact, according to Private School Review, “[t]he average percent of minority students in private schools is approximately 28 percent.”In other words? The minority students, the members of the very groups that this curriculum presumably aims to aid, are actually going to be learning less math than they would have without it -- because they will be spending some of that class time learning about how math’s racism has hurt them. Ironically, one of the curriculum’s goals is to teach students how to “critique systems of power that deny access to mathematical knowledge to people and communities of color,” and yet, that’s exactly what the district itself would be doing with it.The historical contributions of communities of color are important, and students should study them. A better place to study them, though, would (quite obviously) be a history class, not a mathematics one. Mathematics classes should be for mathematics lessons; this is especially important considering the fact that math is exactly where American students (of all races) struggle compared to students in other countries. In fact, according to a Pew Research study from 2017, American students ranked 38th out of 71 countries in the subject. If we want to fix this, we need to focus more on math, instead of looking for ways to teach less of it in the very classes where our students are supposed to be learning it.The bottom line is: If Seattle’s school district really wants to help minority students excel in mathematics, the last thing it should be doing is proposing a math curriculum that would teach less of it in the schools that they’re most likely to attend.

Philippine police recommend drug charges against ex-chief

Philippine police recommended graft and drug charges against its former chief on Monday over a new scandal that has put President Rodrigo Duterte's anti-narcotics crackdown under the spotlight. The police face allegations some officers are involved in the illegal drugs trade and that they had the protection of former chief Oscar Albayalde. It is the latest controversy to engulf the Philippine police force, which is waging a drug war launched by President Duterte in 2016.

NYC, California sue Postal Service over smuggled cigarettes

California and New York City sued the U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday to stop tens of thousands of cigarette packages from being mailed from foreign countries to U.S. residents, saying the smugglers are engaging in tax evasion while postal workers look the other way. The lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court blames the Postal Service for deliveries from Vietnam, China, Israel and other countries, saying the failure to enforce a federal law aimed at banning cigarette mail deliveries costs California an average of $19 million annually in tax revenues and New York City and state over $21 million each year.

Johnson & Johnson CEO testified Baby Powder was safe 13 days before FDA bombshell

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Facing off against a plaintiff’s lawyer for the first time about Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder, the company’s Chief Executive Alex Gorsky earlier this month insisted that the company’s iconic brand was safe. “We unequivocally believe that our talc and our baby powder does not contain asbestos,” Gorsky testified in an Oct. 3 deposition in a case involving a retired Indiana college professor who alleges his cancer was caused by the Baby Powder he used for decades. The deposition has not been previously reported.

Iranian beauty queen pleads for asylum in the Philippines

An Iranian beauty queen is seeking asylum in the Philippines, fearing for her life after Tehran demanded her extradition for a crime she claims she did not commit.  Bahareh Zare Bahari, who represented Iran at the 2018 Miss Intercontinental pageant in Manila, and who has studied dental medicine in the Philippines since 2014, has been held for six days at the country’s Ninoy Aquino airport after Iran slapped an Interpol Red Notice on her for alleged assault.  In a series of messages, the distraught Ms Bahari told the Telegraph that the case was a “big lie,” adding that she believed she was being targeted for her political activism and outspoken support of women’s rights. If she was deported to Iran, “they will kill me,” she said.  Markk Perete, undersecretary at the Philippine department of justice, said that “the only reason she was held at the airport -  and we really don’t call it detention -  it is really restraining her from entering the Philippine territory, is only because of that Red Notice issued against her.” He added that the request had been made “presumably on account of a pending criminal case against her in Iran, and this case was filed by an Iranian national against her in relation to an assault that happened presumably here in the Philippines.” Bahareh Zare Bahari, who is studying dental medicine, is an outspoken advocate for women's rights Credit: Facebook However, Mr Perete said that the Philippines was unaware of this allegation, and that an earlier accusation of commercial fraud against her had been dismissed.  There were no criminal cases pending against Ms Bahari, he confirmed. “We don’t have any cause for refusing her entry for violation of our laws.” Ms Bahari’s asylum plea is now being considered by the justice department, with the help of a lawyer.  Meanwhile, the dental student is confined to Terminal 3’s transit area awaiting her fate. “There is no updating, no information about the reason why [they] keep me here so long,” she said.  She believes her political statement at the pageant - waving a poster of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled former crown prince, and one of the foremost critics of Iran’s Islamic government - made her enemies in Tehran.  Mr Pahlavi's name has been invoked by some Iranian groups who have called for a return of the monarchy to deal with corruption and poor economic conditions. “I used his photo on stage to be [the] voice of my people because all news and media are ignoring my people,” she said.  Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called for “a fair and impartial hearing of her claim” in Manila.  “It’s absolutely critical the Philippines provides Bahareh Zare Bahari with support, including access to legal counsel, to compile and file her asylum application,” said Phil Robertson, HRW deputy Asia director.  “While waiting for the details to become clear, there should be no action under Iran’s Interpol red notice, especially since under Interpol rules a red notice is null and void if the person named in the notice is found to be a refugee fleeing from the state that issued it.”

Mark Levin: ‘Hasn’t Even Been a Hint of Scandal’ in Trump’s Presidency

Right-wing talker and Fox News host Mark Levin hilariously claimed this week that President Donald Trump, who is currently embroiled in an impeachment inquiry for allegedly pressuring a foreign leader to dig up dirt on a political rival, hasn’t even had a “hint of scandal” during his time in the White House.During a recent broadcast of his Blaze TV show, Levin—who also hosts a Fox News weekend program—took aim at Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) over the former GOP presidential nominee ramping up his criticism of Trump as the Ukraine scandal has deepened. With it recently being revealed that Romney had a clandestine Twitter account used for criticizing Trump’s behavior, among other things, Levin took the opportunity to claim that Romney “known nothing about” the personal lives and behavior of former President Barack Obama or ex-Vice President Joe Biden “outside of what we’ve been told.”“And they kept the [John] Kennedy stuff hidden for decades, they kept the [Lyndon] Johnson stuff hidden for decades, they kept the FDR stuff hidden for decades, and his affairs and so forth,” the conservative commentator added, implying that Obama/Biden had skeletons in their closets.Levin proceeded to go on a largely confusing rant in which he said he wanted to question Romney about the Founding Fathers’ sexual affairs and whether he thought it was right for Franklin Roosevelt to team up with Russia during World War II.“What do you think about that, Willard?” Levin grumbled. “I can go through history, one case after another, about how people are so terribly imperfect.”“But I will say this about our president,” the pro-Trump host continued: “While he’s been president there hasn’t even been a hint of scandal. Not a hint!”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.

Joe Biden's Black Sheep Son Could Wreck His Presidential Run

Hunter Biden and, by extension, his father’s third run for the presidency, have become enmeshed in controversy as Donald Trump’s attempts to pressure Ukraine into investigating Hunter’s questionable business dealings in the war-torn country are coming under attack from congressional Democrats.

Iraq: U.S. troops crossing border from Syria don't have approval to stay

U.S. forces that crossed into Iraq as part of a withdrawal from Syria do not have permission to stay and can only be there in transit, the Iraqi military said on Tuesday.

Fears Are Growing Among Mainland Chinese Living in Hong Kong

(Bloomberg) -- As Hong Kong’s historic protests become increasingly violent, mainland Chinese living in the city are becoming increasingly fearful.Min, who moved to Hong Kong from the mainland in 1995 and now runs his own hedge fund, said the startling escalation in mayhem prompted him to tell his children not to speak Mandarin in public for fear they’ll get beaten up in the Cantonese-speaking city.Before going out for dinner, Min checks his phone for news on which city streets are blocked due to mass marches or violent clashes. He stopped flying on the city’s flagship carrier, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., where some staff took part in protests and others were fired after investigations into depleted oxygen tanks. With battles between police and black-clad mobs becoming pervasive, Min said he’s considered moving his business to Shanghai and his family to Canada.“They have no moral bottom line as to what they’ll do to achieve their goals,” Min, who asked that his full name not be used for fear of retribution, said of the protesters. “Fingers crossed, I believe the police can crush this.”The strife ripping through Hong Kong -- with police officers and protesters in hand-to-hand combat, subway stations set ablaze and an improvised explosive device detonated near a police car -- looks very different to the city’s mainland-born residents. More than 1 million mainlanders, including many professionals, have migrated across the border since China regained control of the former British colony in 1997, helping swell its population to 7.5 million.The protests began in opposition to a since-scrapped government bill allowing extraditions to mainland China and have expanded to include calls for greater democracy and an independent inquiry into police tactics. While the majority of protesters are peaceful, the demonstrations often feature a darker, anti-China tone. Some demonstrators have burned Chinese flags and spray-painted the phrases “Chinazi” and “Hong Kong is not China!” across the city.The rhetoric is spilling over into violence on both sides. A 22-year-old mainland visitor accused of slashing a teenage Hong Kong protester in the abdomen surrendered to police this week.Over the weekend, gangs ransacked or destroyed Chinese bank branches and retail businesses, including an outlet for smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. based in Beijing.The tensions between mainlanders and locals also surface in daily office interactions.“Employees are generally encouraged to not discuss this topic at work and to leave political opinions at home,” said Benjamin Quinlan, chief executive officer of financial-services consultancy Quinlan & Associates. Still, “you can’t segregate a private and corporate life so cleanly, and there will inevitably be opinions on politics that don’t gel among colleagues.”When crowds surged into the streets recently, Yang, a 34-year-old finance professional from China, watched from above in one of the city’s gleaming skyscrapers.TVs in the office -- and desktop live-streams -- were all tuned to the protests against Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s impending use of a colonial-era emergency powers law to ban face masks on demonstrators. Mobile phones buzzed with messages flowing across WeChat groups about looming protests and violence outside, including one alarming video of a Chinese banker from JPMorgan Chase & Co. getting punched in the head by a protester, and someone yelling: “Go back to the mainland!”On Tuesday, lawmakers debated the ban on face coverings at the city’s Legislative Council. Financial Secretary Paul Chan was also set to announce various measures to support local businesses impacted by the protests.Yang, who asked to be identified only by one name, also is scared to speak Mandarin and has been regularly fleeing across the border to nearby Shenzhen to escape the violence. That Friday afternoon, she left early and dashed to meet her husband and daughter at the bus station, right before the city descended into its worst violence on the weekend of Oct. 5.“As I rushed to the bus station to regroup with my family, I was so stressed -- hearing my heart beating quickly and strongly,” she said, adding she bought the last three tickets for a bus that whisked them all to Shenzhen, which was celebrating 70 years of Communist rule with buildings and billboards decked out in red lights.“When the bus crossed the bridge and was about to enter Shenzhen, we all saw the red neon at the other side of the river,” she said. “I felt suddenly relaxed.”At the same time, several mainlanders interviewed said they were reluctant to uproot the lives they built in Hong Kong over many years: landing coveted jobs at international companies, getting their children into international schools and buying homes. And plenty of Mandarin conversations can be heard while walking through the financial district.Yet while many mainlanders say they feel shunned by some Hong Kongers, many locals worry that showing support for the protests will hurt their careers. Some Hong Kong employees working at Chinese firms said they were told to attend pro-Beijing demonstrations, and feared losing their jobs if they refused.Pro-Beijing RalliesOne Hong Konger with the surname Ho, who took a job at a U.S.-based bank over the summer after working at a Chinese bank in the city for three years, said mainland colleagues at her former employer would try to find out her stance on the conflict -- and criticize anyone they thought supported the protesters.“I was asked to attend the rallies that support the Hong Kong police,” said the employee, who asked not to be identified by her full name to avoid hurting her career. “Of course, I didn’t go. Then some of my former colleagues linked my resignation to my political views. They thought I was fired because I’m pro-independence, which wasn’t true.”In the financial sector, the conflicts between those sympathetic to protesters and those aligned with Beijing can be seen in instances both subtle and dramatic.Hao Hong, chief strategist at Bocom International Holdings Co. in Hong Kong, recently visited another company to meet with workers from mainland China, stepping into an office and speaking to them in Mandarin. Their local colleague quickly raised the volume on a nearby TV, overpowering the conversation with the sound of a show -- in Cantonese.Moving Back“Sometimes people refuse to talk to you if you speak to them in Mandarin,” said Hong, who’s lived in the former British colony for eight years. “Everyone is touchy.”In addition to not speaking Mandarin in public, other mainlanders said they have stopped using WeChat -- the Tencent Holdings Ltd.-owned Chinese messaging service -- in the open.Some have started considering relocating back to the mainland, despite spending decades in the city, said one woman who works at a Chinese hedge fund and asked that she only be identified as Levy. Mainlanders with children in local schools are concerned they will be exposed to anti-government sentiment, she said.“We are all in the financial industry,” Levy said. “If they can find good offers in Shanghai or Beijing, there is now a stronger incentive to move back.”(Updates paragraph 5 to clarify the mainland population in Hong Kong, and adds government measures to boost the economy in paragraph 13.)\--With assistance from Manuel Baigorri, Moxy Ying, Lulu Yilun Chen and Iain Marlow.To contact the reporters on this story: Bei Hu in Hong Kong at bhu5@bloomberg.net;Alfred Cang in Singapore at acang@bloomberg.net;Alfred Liu in Hong Kong at aliu226@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Candice Zachariahs at czachariahs2@bloomberg.net, ;Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Daniel Taub, Michael TigheFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Canadian Court Rules against Transgender Activist Jessica Yaniv in Fight with Beauticians over Waxing

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has ruled against Canadian transgender activist Jessica Yaniv in a case stemming from a complaint Yaniv filed against multiple female beauticians who refused to wax Yaniv’s male genitalia.“Self-identification does not erase physiological reality,” said Jay Cameron, a lawyer for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which represented the beauticians. “Our clients do not offer the service requested. No woman should be compelled to touch male genitals against her will, irrespective of how the owner of the genitals identifies.”The Tribunal said in its decision that Yaniv had had filed the “complaints for improper purposes,” and had contradicted herself in “disingenuous” testimony. Yaniv, who is sexually attracted to women, brought 15 complaints against a number of beauticians in the Vancouver area, seeking as much as $15,000 in damages from each one.“Most of the women who were the target of Yaniv’s complaints work out of their own home, are of immigrant background, and have small children with them in the house during the day,” the Justice Centre’s report said. Yaniv also apparently accused immigrants during the trial of discrimination for refusing service on religious grounds, writing earlier this year on Facebook that “we have a lot of immigrants here who gawk, judge and aren’t the cleanest of people, they’re also verbally and physically abusive, that’s one reason I joined a girl’s gym.”Yaniv is being ordered to pay $2,000 to three of the accused women, one of whom was forced out of business due to the case.In August, Yaniv was arrested for owning a taser, after brandishing it on camera during an interview about Yaniv’s alleged history of predatory behavior toward children. Screen-captured messages allegedly from Yaniv highlighted intimate questions to underage girls, and legal documents showed an attempt to organize a topless pool party for such girls.

Fall of a royal consort and the Thai king's assertive reign

The very public downfall of the Thai king's 34-year-old consort -- stripped of all royal titles and military ranks by a late-night command -- left the country open-mouthed Tuesday at the latest abrupt act from its mercurial monarch. Former royal bodyguard and army nurse Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi was dismissed from the rank of Chao Khun Phra, or noble consort, and accused of "disloyalty to the king". Here are five ways royal power has been displayed under Thailand's new king so far, from beefing up his security to taking direct control of a fortune.

A Tenn. county official called Pete Buttigieg a slur. It sparked calls to boycott Dollywood

Following his remark, Commissioner Warren Hurst went on to say, “I’m not prejudice, but by golly a white male in this country has very few rights."

Poll: Majority of Mexicans say organized crime stronger than government after El Chapo’s son released

A majority of Mexicans see organized crime as more powerful than the Mexican government after government forces capitulated to drug-cartel strongmen and released the son of the former cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán, known as “El Chapo.”

Trump Whines That Senate Republicans Are Failing Him on Impeachment and Not Owning Nearly Enough Libs

Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily BeastPresident Trump, his advisers, and his most fervent media allies have grown increasingly irritated with Senate Republicans for failing to counterprogram the Democratic-led House impeachment inquiry.In the weeks since the now-infamous whistleblower complaint came to light—and as various witnesses have since testified behind closed doors about the administration’s efforts in Ukraine to dig up dirt on political opponents—the president’s close advisers have pushed for the Senate GOP to hold hearings and call witnesses of their own in a broader effort to put Democrats on the defensive.According to those who’ve spoken with him recently, Trump remains confident that the Senate, still under Republican Party control, would readily acquit him if the House passed articles of impeachment. But it’s the damage they will incur getting there that has the president and his team worried. That’s where, they believe, his top allies should come in to run interference. In particular, there is growing frustration that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has not yet called hearings into the issues that sparked Trump’s interest in Ukraine: Joe Biden’s alleged and unfounded attempts to aid a business whose board his son sat on as well as  a conspiracy theory that links Ukraine with 2016 election meddling. "Senate Republicans don't have to defend Trump on everything, they just have to do their jobs,” said one senior Trump operative. “Part of that is holding hearings, calling witnesses, and forcing testimony on the misdeeds we already know about—Ukraine’s interference in the 2016 election against Trump, the Clinton campaign paying foreign sources to fabricate a dossier against Trump, the politically driven Kavanaugh smear campaign, the son of the former vice president influence-trading overseas, Adam Schiff trying to obtain dirt on Trump from the Ukrainian embassy, and more. What good is controlling half of Congress if Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff get to run the whole show anyway?"The complaints have come from the top down. One source who spoke to Trump in the past two weeks said that the president wondered aloud why Republican lawmakers couldn’t be more like people such as Tom Fitton—the Judicial Watch president who Trump regularly watches on Fox and often excitedly tweets about—when defending him against the impeachment inquiry. And in public, Trump has increasingly let his dissatisfaction with Republican Senate leadership and others be known.“Republicans have to get tougher and fight,” the president said at a cabinet meeting at the White House on Monday. “We have some that are great fighters, but they have to get tougher and fight because the Democrats are trying to hurt the Republican Party for the election.”For all the grumbling, however, the White House has appeared to have done very little to chart out a hearing process of their own. Graham has floated the idea of calling Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to testify. But those plans appear far off—if not dead entirely—as Giuliani has receded from the spotlight. Graham did not return a request for comment. But one senior Senate aide said that there has been little that the White House has offered that has given members there either direction or confidence. “As far as I know, there are no emissaries on the Hill telling us what to say on this,” said the senior Senate GOP aide. “I'm not going to rule out any work on our side in terms of looking into other things that are sort of adjacent to the investigations going on. But there is just not a lot of appetite among Senate Republicans. They are not very enthusiastic about defending the indefensible on this stuff.” Evidence of the divide between the White House and Senate GOPers has emerged in recent days, with allies of the former—including the president’s son Don Jr.—taking to Twitter to berate Republican lawmakers for not doing more, and members of the latter gently distancing themselves from the president on a range of fronts. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he did not “recall any conversation with the president,” in which he told Trump that his phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was, in fact, “perfect.” The Zelensky call is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry launched to determine if Trump threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless that government investigated Biden. And Trump has repeatedly said that McConnell privately told him that nothing wrong was uttered.McConnell’s remarks were noticed among other Hill Republicans, who have watched warily over the last few weeks as the White House has struggled to mount a defense to the damaging allegations emerging from the House proceedings. And they were widely interpreted as a message to the president that—for all his demands that the Senate get more aggressive in rallying to his side—he had to come up with a plan to defend himself first. “It’s amazing that people are attacking Senate Rs,” texted one top Senate GOP aide. “The White House has literally no pushback to what the House is doing. No war room, nothing.”With little counterprogramming being planned currently by Senate Republicans, much of the White House’s focus has drifted to other investigations that could shift the focus away from Trump. In particular, there is hope that a Department of Justice probe into the origins of the 2016 investigation into Trump and Russian electoral interference could turn up findings problematic for several prominent Democrats, chief among them Obama’s former CIA Director John Brennan.“It seems [prosecutor John] Durham is working on this, and I suppose following his report, further action could be taken as warranted,” said one senior White House official.But not everyone in Trump’s orbit is willing to wait patiently for Durham’s findings. Indeed, some of Trump’s favorite media sycophants have begun letting it be known that they expect more from the president’s reliable fellow travelers on the Hill.“Think about this, nothing is happening in the U.S. Senate… nothing!” Lou Dobbs, a Fox Business host and top informal Trump adviser, said on his show Monday evening. As it were, Dobbs was talking to Fitton at the time. “For nine months, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee [Lindsey Graham] has not lifted a finger to help this president. He blathers little soundbites one side or another for or against the president every week, it seems, but has done nothing for the American people or truth, justice, and the American way.”“He is an embarrassment to the government of this country and its traditions,” Dobbs added for good measure.Tucker Carlson, another pro-Trump Fox personality who has privately advised the president on foreign policy, also took aim at Graham on Monday night. Speaking with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Carlson grumbled that Graham wasn’t upholding his promise to get to the bottom of whether or not “top DOJ officials plotted a bureaucratic coup to overthrow the elected president.”Paul, one of the president’s most vocal defenders on Capitol Hill these days, suggested that Graham and other Republican senators were more loyal to the so-called Deep State than to Trump, adding that the South Carolina senator may want the Deep State to “maintain their power and maintain the intelligence community’s enormous grip.”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.

This 1 Invention Made Swedish Submarines Among the Best

A silent, powerful new engine.

Gun control advocate: Pushing mandatory buybacks will hand victory to the NRA, again

We can pass significant gun safety laws but not if the 2020 campaign is about confiscating assault weapons. This is not timidity, it's reality.

Murder suspect walks free as Hong Kong, Taiwan authorities clash

A murder suspect whose case was used by the Hong Kong government to push for a controversial extradition bill walked free from jail on Wednesday as the city's authorities squabbled with Taiwan over how to handle a promised voluntary surrender. Chan Tong-kai, a Hong Kong citizen, was accused of murdering his girlfriend in Taiwan last year before fleeing back to the Chinese-ruled financial hub. Chan, wearing a navy blue shirt and red backpack, bowed and apologized to the family of his ex-girlfriend and the public as he left the prison in Hong Kong's rural Sai Kung district after being sentenced to 29 months for money laundering.

Six Chinese men imprisoned after outsourcing same hit job

Six men in China have been sentenced to prison for attempted murder after they all tried to pass on a hit job they were reluctant to carry out in person.  Real estate businessman Qin Youhui began the saga in 2013 when he hired a contract killer to take out a rival, Mr Wei, who was suing him.  But that hit man instead pocketed half of the two million yuan (£218,000) Mr Qin paid out and passed the gig to another person. The assassination was then contracted out an additional three times until a fifth man entered the picture, Ling Xiansi. By then, it was April 2014, and the original pot of job money had dwindled – he was offered just 100,000 yuan (£10,900) to carry out the killing. Mr Ling decided it simply wasn’t enough. So he sent a note to the target, Mr Wei, asking to meet. The pair ended up in a coffee shop together, where Mr Ling told Mr Wei, “For just 100,000 yuan, I don’t want to kill you, but you have to cooperate with me.” The two men staged Mr Wei’s death, sending photos of the faked murder scene along as proof the job was finished. But in yet another twist Mr Wei later reported the entire incident to the local police in Nanning, a southern Chinese city. Police – at first suspicious about the unconventional allegations ­– opened an investigation, finding enough evidence for prosecutors to bring the case to trial. At first Mr Qin and the five contract killers were acquitted, which is extremely unusual in a country with a 99.9 per cent conviction rate. Prosecutors appealed, and last week, the Nanning Intermediate People’s Court finally handed down prison sentences ranging from two years and seven months to five years, according to a court statement online, for “deliberately depriving others of their livelihood, with actions that constituted the crime of intentional homicide.” Additional reporting by Yiyin Zhong

Southern Niger reels after Nigeria closes borders

Dan Issa (Niger) (AFP) - "Nothing crosses into Nigeria and nothing comes out. It's hermetically sealed," said Amadou Idi, sitting in a makeshift shelter to keep out of the rain, and reflecting on the downturn in his luck. Idi's job is a transiting agent -- to get goods across the border to Nigeria at the Dan Issa frontier post in southeastern Niger.

Blackout Round 2? Californians brace for possible outage

Hundreds of thousands of California residents braced for another possible power outage as the state's two largest utilities warned that a return of dangerous fire weather could prompt shut-offs across the state. The warning from Pacific Gas & Electric about a possible blackout Wednesday in Northern California prompted a feeling of resignation among residents and business owners and renewed rushes to stock up on emergency supplies. "I think it's not panic per se, just 'Eh, we gotta do this AGAIN?'" said Kim Schefer, manager of Village True Value Hardware in Santa Rosa.

Graham Backs Trump’s Claim That Impeachment Inquiry Represents a ‘Lynching’

Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) on Tuesday endorsed President Trump's characterization of the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry as a "lynching.""All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here - a lynching," Trump wrote on Twitter. "But we will WIN!"The comments prompted immediate criticism from Democrats."That is one word that no president ought to apply to himself," House Majority Whip Tim Clyburn (D., S.C.) said in an interview on CNN.However, Graham stood by Trump's comments."This is a lynching in every sense. This is un-American," Graham said in response. "I’ve never seen a situation in my lifetime as a lawyer where somebody is accused of a major misconduct who cannot confront the accuser, call witnesses on her behalf and have the discussion in the light of day so the public can judge."Democrats leading the impeachment inquiry are investigating whether Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine to pressure the country to investigate corruption allegations against former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.Graham was asked if he could understand the offense taken by African-Americans at Trump's invocation of a historic racial injustice."Yes, African Americans have [been] lynched. Other people have been lynched throughout history," Graham responded. "What does lynching mean? That a mob grabs you, they don’t give you a chance to defend yourself, they don’t tell you what happened to you, they just destroy you. That’s exactly what’s happening in the United States House of Representatives right now."Graham has generally been a staunch ally of President Trump throughout the impeachment process, although in a Sunday interview he did not rule out impeachment if lawmakers brought to his attention evidence of a crime committed by Trump.The South Carolina lawmaker has also pushed back vigorously against Trump's order to withdraw American troops from northeast Syria.

Nadler Defens Stzok Texts to Mistress as 'Highest Tradition'

But the Inspector-General called them 'antithetical to the core values of the FBI.'