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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- The decision by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's security cabinet to release the captured son of the world's most notorious drug lord left him struggling to contain the damage amid public outrage.AMLO, as the president is known, said the government took the decision after Mexican forces were overpowered Thursday as they attempted to take in Ovidio Guzman Lopez, son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. The son is said to have taken over some criminal operations from his father. The confrontation, which left eight dead, occurred in Culiacan, the capital of the western state of Sinaloa.His public security minister, Alfonso Durazo, admitted that the operation to capture Guzman Lopez was a failure. Reporters peppered him with questions at a news conference in Culiacan, asking if he would resign. Durazo deflected, suggesting that he could do so if the moment arrives when he decides he no longer can contribute to securing peace in the nation."The government clearly looks bad after this," Daniel Kerner, an analyst at Eurasia Group, wrote in a research report. "It clearly failed to plan and anticipate the response that going after the son of one of the most notable drug leaders in Mexico would generate given the cartel's influence in the city. As such, it looks like it had no strategy and no coordination."The incident presents the biggest security challenge yet to Lopez Obrador, who was elected on promises to stop years of violence and has maintained an approval rate of more than 60% in polls despite a stagnant economy. Homicides are on pace to break last year's record, according to data through August, rising more than 3% to exceed 23,000.Cartel members on Thursday turned C
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Oct 18, 2019
A former Georgia police officer who fatally shot an unarmed, fleeing black man was sentenced to one year in prison Friday, nearly two weeks after a jury acquitted him of manslaughter charges but found him guilty of violating his oath of office. Superior Court Judge Stephen Scarlett in Camden County near the Georgia-Florida state line also gave Zechariah Presley four years of probation. Presley's wife said her husband was the "backbone" of their family, and their sons would be devastated if he were away longer.
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Oct 18, 2019
The number 2023 spotted on press photos has people all excited, but Dodge told C/D it doesn't mean anything.
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Oct 18, 2019
Chip Somodevilla/GettyDuring a closed-door impeachment meeting on Capitol Hill, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) brought up a topic that surprised some attendees: the Steele dossier. The context, according to three sources familiar with the episode, was his effort to explain why President Trump might be "upset" about Ukraine. Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee that is leading the impeachment probe, said some of the dossier's contents dealt with Ukraine, and that the Clintons paid for it. Some attendees said it seemed oddly divorced from the topic at hand-namely, whether Trump pressured the Ukrainian government to investigate one of his political opponents."It was nutso," said one person familiar with the exchange. "It was awkward." That source added that Ambassador Gordon Sondland—America's envoy to the European Union, who was questioned at the meeting—appeared perplexed by Nunes' commentary. A Nunes spokesperson said the congressman has made the argument described above in public.The dossier is at the crux of Republicans' argument that the intelligence community conspired to take down Trump in 2016, and the president has tweeted about it dozens of times. Democrats view their focus on the document as conspiratorial and odd.Democrats called Sondland to Capitol Hill to answer questions about his role helping Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, develop a shadow foreign policy on Ukraine focused on pressuring its government to investigate t
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Oct 18, 2019
During a closed-door impeachment meeting on Capitol Hill, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) brought up a topic that surprised some attendees: the Steele dossier. The context, according to three sources familiar with the episode, was his effort to explain why President Trump might be "upset" about Ukraine.
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Oct 18, 2019
"This is not some outlandish claim," Clinton said in an interview this week. "This is reality."
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Oct 18, 2019
For centuries, the ancient city of Mahendraparvata has been buried under a dense canopy in the Cambodian jungle. It was one of the first capitals of the Khmer Empire, which controlled large swaths of Southeast Asia from the 9th to 15th centuries. Over the last 150 years, archaeologists have uncovered artifacts that they suspected came from Mahendraparvata, but they didn't have enough evidence to support the link — until now.
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Oct 18, 2019
A man who inadvertently triggered Hong Kong's huge protests after he murdered his girlfriend in Taiwan has agreed to return to the island to face justice, a clergyman who has visited him in prison said on Friday. Chan Tong-kai, 20, is wanted in Taiwan for the murder of his pregnant girlfriend during a holiday the two Hong Kongers took there in February last year. The case triggered an ill-fated proposal by Hong Kong's pro-Beijing government to ram through a sweeping extradition bill which would have allowed the city to extradite suspects to any territory, including the authoritarian mainland.
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Oct 18, 2019
The U.S. Supreme Court stepped into a new immigration dispute on Friday, agreeing to hear an appeal by President Donald Trump's administration of a lower court ruling that could frustrate a top priority of his: quickly deporting illegal immigrants. The justices agreed to review a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that favored a Sri Lankan asylum seeker. The 9th Circuit found that a federal law that largely stripped the power of courts to review quick deportations - known as expedited removal - violated in his case a provision of the U.S. Constitution called the suspension clause.
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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a Trump administration appeal that could bolster the government's ability to deport undocumented immigrants quickly after their asylum bids are rejected.Taking up a politically charged issue, the justices said they'll review a lower court's conclusion that people who enter the country illegally have a broad right under the Constitution to make their case to a federal judge before being deported.The case centers on "expedited removal," a streamlined deportation process set up by Congress in 1996. Right now, those eligible include thousands of people who every year are arrested within 100 miles of the border less than two weeks after crossing and then are deemed by immigration officials not to have a credible fear of being persecuted if they are deported. The process gives federal judges only a limited role.The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Constitution guarantees a Sri Lankan man arrested near the Mexican border a "meaningful opportunity" to show he met the criteria for asylum.In its appeal, the Trump administration said the 9th Circuit ruling would "impose a severe burden" on the U.S. immigration system.Strained Resources"Such review would further strain the government's limited resources and prevent expedited removal from being expedited at all," argued U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer.The appeal doesn't directly concern the Trump administration's effort to expand the expedited removal program to cover people who've been in the U.S. as long as two years and are no longer near the border. A federal judge in Washington temporarily blocked t
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Oct 18, 2019
Israeli forces shot a Palestinian who ran towards them with a knife near a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Friday, Israel's defence ministry said, and Palestinian officials said he died of his injury. Israel's defence ministry said a Palestinian man ran towards a checkpoint between Israel and the central West Bank city of Tulkarem "with a knife in hand, with the apparent intention of attacking security personnel".
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Oct 18, 2019
Insider's polling has found that support for impeaching Trump has hardly changed, but partisanship has.
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Oct 18, 2019
We're updating this live as more subpoenas are issued
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Oct 18, 2019
Maya Alleruzzo/APBRUSSELS-"The guards have said if the war comes close, then they will leave here," a Western ISIS wife texted me today from Camp Roj in far northeastern Syria, a detention center that houses 500 ISIS wives and 1,200 of their children. "What to do if we are left alone?" she asks. "There's nowhere to go and too risky to get caught by Bashar [al-Assad]."As she writes, I'm in Belgium sitting next to an FBI agent. I ask him what she should do, but amid all of this chaos, he doesn't have an immediate answer. The Kurds Gave Their Lives to Defeat the Islamic State. Trump Just Pissed It All Away.The ISIS wife continues: "I like how America thinks it's too dangerous for them [the U.S. military] to be here but safe for us to remain with Assad."Over the past two years I've been in and out of the northeastern territory of Syria held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) six times with staff from the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE). We have conducted in-depth interviews with 217 ISIS men and women, 100 of them in SDF held territory, for our project countering the ISIS brand, which the SDF has supported fully. The woman texting me today gave us an interview last year and has managed to stay in touch via illicit phones other detainees allow her to use.At the same time she is texting me, our Kurdish translator texts that they are living under the sound of bombs and troops advancing. Assad's troops are marching eastward, while Turkey is bar
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Oct 18, 2019
An earthquake hit the southern Philippines late Wednesday, killing a girl, and injuring more than two dozen people in collapsed houses, and sending thousands of panicked people scrambling out of homes, shopping malls and a hospital, officials and news reports said. The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 6.4 quake was centered about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from Columbio, a landlocked town in the coastal province of Sultan Kudarat.
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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- Kurdish fighters say they have no intention of withdrawing from Syria's entire northeastern border -- but that's exactly what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expects to happen under the cease-fire accord brokered by the U.S. on Thursday.The conflicting interpretations point to the fragility of the five-day truce deal, which is already being tested with reports of continuing skirmishes between Turkish forces and Syria's Kurdish YPG militia, which is part of an autonomous administration in the northeast.Ankara says the YPG is linked to Kurdish separatists that it has battled for decades, and launched an offensive into northeastern Syria more than a week ago to push the group back from its border.After days of fighting, Turkey's army now controls less than 120 kilometers (75 miles) of the frontier between the Syrian towns of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn. But it wants to create a buffer zone on hundreds more, stretching from the Euphrates River in the west to the Iraqi border in the east.The deal struck by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Erdogan -- under which American troops would guide a YPG exit -- was vague on detail. But Turkey has made its interpretation clear.Turkish officials including Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu were quick to boast that they had been given pretty much all they desired.With the ink on the agreement barely dry, Erdogan made it clear that the Kurds must leave a zone 444 km long and as deep as 32 km."If their promise is not kept the minute when the 120th hour ends, t
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Oct 18, 2019
The charismatic frontman of Thailand's anti-military parliamentary bloc appeared in court Friday accused of breaching election rules by holding media shares, a case which could see him barred from politics and jailed for up to 10 years. Billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, 40, has rattled the kingdom's arch-royalist establishment since seizing the political limelight with his caustic take downs of the army's role in Thai politics and society.
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Oct 18, 2019
Deep-sea explorers scouring the world's oceans for sunken Second World War ships have uncovered the wreck of a Japanese aircraft carrier destroyed in the pivotal Battle of Midway.Fought in June 1942, the clash saw US aircraft carriers ambush their Japanese foes and sink all four opposing Imperial Navy (IJN) flattops thanks partly to intelligence gained through intercepted communications.
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Oct 18, 2019
A contractor posted a video arguing it showed structural problems inside the Hard Rock Hotel construction site two days before its deadly collapse.
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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- A key hurdle to extending a landmark nuclear treaty between the U.S. and Russia isn't Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. It's China.The New START treaty, the last major arms control accord between the world's two nuclear superpowers, is set to expire in early 2021. Like another key treaty covering intermediate-range nuclear missiles, which collapsed this year after the U.S. quit that accord, Trump administration officials say the agreement may not be worth extending if China isn't brought into the fold.A failure to renew or extend the accord would mark the effective end of decades of agreements aimed at limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Experts say it would also send a worrisome signal to other nations -- from Saudi Arabia to North Korea -- already pursuing or seeking to pursue nuclear programs.U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in August that the U.S. should consider "multi-lateralizing" the agreement. "If we really want to go after avoiding an arms race, and capture these systems, we should multi-lateralize it."Yet while the U.S. believes China will double its nuclear stockpile over the next decade, most arms control experts say it would be better for Washington and Moscow to settle on an extension of New START and worry about Beijing later."China doesn't have anything like the number of warheads the U.S. and Russia possess," Sam Nunn, a former Democratic senator from Georgia who co-chairs the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said in an interview. "We will at some point h
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Oct 18, 2019
For centuries, the ancient city of Mahendraparvata has been covered by dense trees that make it hard to observe.
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Oct 18, 2019
After agreeing to an alliance with Kurdish forces on Sunday, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said Thursday that Syrian forces will help the Kurds repel Turkey's invasion by "all legitimate means." Assad's comments come a day after Turkey accused Syria of a "dirty deal" with Kurdish forces.Syria "will respond to [Turkey] and confront it, in all its forms, anywhere in Syria, using all legitimate means at our disposal," Assad said during a press conference with Iraqi national-security adviser Faleh al-Fayad.Although the Kurds and Assad's regime have long been rivals, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi explained in an article published Sunday that — in the absence of American forces — the Kurds needed support in order to repel the Turks, which necessitated making "painful compromises" with the Syrian government."If we have to choose between compromises and the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life for our people," Abdi wrote.Thursday marks the ninth day of Turkey's incursion into Northern Syria, which has resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians and over 300,000 new refugees.Turkey began negotiations with the United States over a prospective ceasefire Thursday, as Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Vice President Mike Pence for over two and half hours behind closed doors before delegation talks began. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNBC in an interview Thursday that the U.S. may levy additional sanctions on Turkey to keep the Erdogan regime "in line."
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Oct 18, 2019
Amid what experts are calling a surge in voter suppression measures, Democrats are sending a clear signal they want to restore portions of the Voting Rights Act that were removed by the Supreme Court in 2013, as well as expand the law's reach.
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Oct 18, 2019
Heavily armed fighters surrounded security forces in a Mexican city on Thursday and made them free one of drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's sons, after his capture triggered gunbattles and a prison break that sent civilians scurrying for cover. Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said a patrol by National Guard militarized police first came under attack from within a house in the city of Culiacan, 1,235 km (770 miles) northwest of Mexico City. After entering the house, they found four men, including Ovidio Guzman, who is accused of drug trafficking in the United States.
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Oct 18, 2019
White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley chided grieving parents in defense of President Donald Trump, suggesting on Thursday morning that the family of Harry Dunn was lying when they said the president "ambushed" them and tried to pressure them into meeting the woman who killed their son.In an interview Thursday morning on CNN, the Dunn family said they felt Trump was trying to "intimidate" them into meeting the wife of a U.S. diplomat who killed Dunn in an auto accident in the United Kingdom. A family spokesman further stated that during the Dunns' White House visit, the president's aides acted as "henchmen" and were "snarling" at the family.Appearing on Fox News' America's Newsroom, Gidley was asked about the parents' description of Trump's visit with the parents and whether he could explain why they felt the president ambushed them."I have spoken with the president directly about this," the White House spokesman replied. "It is a horrific situation. He offered his condolences to the family and understands the gravity of this moment and the situation. He did this simply on the behest of [British Prime Minister] Boris Johnson to meet with that family. He wasn't trying to ambush anybody."Fox News anchor Sandra Smith then wondered aloud if the president exerted pressure on the family to meet with the diplomat's wife at the White House."Absolutely not," Gildey declared. "He was wonderful in that setting."Co-anchor Bill Hemm
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Oct 18, 2019
Jay Goldberg, President Trump's personal lawyer for 15 years, told MSNBC's Ari Melber on Thursday night that he warned Trump not to hire his current personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani."I think he's gone off the rails," Goldberg said of Giuliani, now being scrutinized by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for his work in Ukraine. "I think he will have legal liability." When Trump asked him last March if he should retain Giuliani's legal services, "I said despite his background, which as extraordinarily good, Giuliani would not make a good defense-type lawyer," Goldberg said, because "he had spent too much time as a prosecutor; prosecutors can generally go outside the line and there's nobody to correct them." He added that he thinks "Giuliani has been seduced by Mar-a-Lago, the lifestyle.""Does Rudy Giuliani have any evidence or records that could resolve what he was doing with Ukraine?" Melber asked, and Goldberg dropped a potential bombshell: "Yes, there's a book that he kept of all the contacts that he made while in the Ukraine. It hasn't been subpoenaed thus far, it hasn't come to light, and I tell you that if the subpoena is issued for that book that he prepared, it will redound to the detriment of Donald under an agency kind of concept, that Donald will be responsible for all the things that he did. And Giuliani did a lot of the things that he's used to doing while he w
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Oct 18, 2019
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has asked the department to investigate his actions after he was found lying down in a car near his home. Police department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says Johnson indicated he parked his car after feeling lightheaded. The 59-year-old Johnson underwent kidney transplant surgery in August 2017.
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Oct 18, 2019
Allegiant, working with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, made a five-year-old boy's dream vacation to Walt Disney World that much more special.
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Oct 18, 2019
U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday questioned whether a lower court sufficiently considered that a man convicted in the deadly 2002 "D.C. Sniper" shooting spree in the Washington area was a minor at the time of the crimes when he was sentenced to life in prison. The nine justices heard arguments in an appeal by the state of Virginia objecting to the lower court's decision ordering that Lee Boyd Malvo's sentence of life in prison without parole be thrown out. The most likely contender based on questions he asked during the argument would be Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
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Oct 18, 2019
A U.S. State Department official told impeachment investigators on Tuesday that he raised concerns about Hunter Biden's involvement in a Ukrainian natural gas company in 2015, telling one of then vice president Joe Biden's staffers that the arrangement may constitute a conflict of interest, the Washington Post reported Friday.Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent testified that he worried Ukrainian officials would use Hunter Biden's position at the company, Burisma Holdings, as an opportunity to influence his father. Kent said he tried to convey his opinion to Joe Biden's office, but that a staffer told him the vice president didn't have the "bandwidth" to address the issue because his other son, Beau, was battling cancer.This is the first known instance in which a career diplomat tried to raise concerns regarding Hunter Biden's business holdings in Ukraine. Several of Joe Biden's former advisers also reportedly had discussions about whether his son's business dealings could be seen as a conflict of interest.A former senior Biden national-security aide dismissed the issue in comments to the Post."Did it have any effect on US policies, either on what we were doing or what the Ukrainians were doing? It didn't," the former aide said. "In the aggregate it didn't have any discernible effect."President Trump and his personal lawyer, Ru
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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- Republican senators said Wednesday they want to move quickly on legislation to support pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong despite a threat of retaliation from China."Hong Kong is a high priority for me," said GOP Senator Jim Risch, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. "We're going to move on it as rapidly as we can."Senator Roy Blunt, a member of the Senate GOP leadership, said there haven't been any discussions about the timing for a vote on Hong Kong legislation similar to a measure that passed the House Tuesday. That bill would subject the city's special U.S. trading status to annual reviews and provides for sanctions against officials deemed responsible for undermining its "fundamental freedoms and autonomy."Following the House vote, China's foreign ministry issued a warning of unspecified "strong countermeasures" if the U.S. enacts that legislation and a package of other measures backing a pro-democracy movement that has rocked the former British colony for more than four months.There is broad backing in both parties in Congress to show support for the protesters and punish China for any crackdown. The White House declined to comment on whether President Donald Trump would sign the Hong Kong legislation, but there are enough votes in the House to override a veto and no significant opposition in the Senate.QuickTake: How the U.S. Congress Is Riling China on Hong KongThe next step will be up to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who'll set the schedule for a vote, and he'
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Oct 18, 2019
Deep-sea explorers scouring the world's oceans for sunken World War II ships are focusing in on debris fields deep in the Pacific, in an area where one of the most decisive battles of the time took place. Hundreds of miles off Midway Atoll, nearly halfway between the United States and Japan, a research vessel is launching underwater robots miles into the abyss to look for warships from the famed Battle of Midway. Weeks of grid searches around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands already have led the crew of the Petrel to one sunken warship, the Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga.
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Oct 18, 2019
Senior House Democrats say they won't let up on their demands for documents and testimony from outgoing Energy Secretary Rick Perry in the wake of his resignation announcement — and at least one Republican agrees with them. Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) called on Perry Friday to comply with a House subpoena and cooperate with the impeachment inquiry into the Trump administration's actions in Ukraine. The secretary faces a Friday deadline to comply with the subpoena but has not said what he plans to do.
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Oct 18, 2019
The truth gets its boots on pretty quickly in the Internet age. On October 6, the New York Times ran a piece broadcasting the striking claims made by the economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman in the new book The Triumph of Injustice. Just a couple of weeks later, it's clear that these claims are built atop a foundation of often questionable and sometimes indefensible assumptions.Per Saez and Zucman, while the rich have been pulling in more and more of the nation's income — grabbing about a fifth of it now, double what they got a few decades back — they're paying lower and lower tax rates. Indeed, in 2018, the richest 400 Americans paid the lowest overall tax rate (including state, local, and federal taxes) of any income group. While the very richest Americans in 1950 paid two-thirds of their income in taxes, in 2018 it was down below a quarter; even the full top 0.1 percent barely pay more than the bottom 90 percent these days. It's not that much of an exaggeration to say we have a flat tax system, not a progressive one.The debunkings came from everywhere: a Twitter thread by Journal of Public Economics editor Wojtek Kopczuk, an article by the economic historian Phil Magness, an academic response from the economist David Splinter, a report from the Republican side of the Senate's Joint Economic Committee (JEC), a traditional book review in Le Grand Continent, and more.Let's take the two claims, rising inequality and rich people pa
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Oct 18, 2019
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan earlier on Friday said Turkey will set up a dozen observation posts across northeast Syria, insisting that a planned "safe zone" will extend much further than U.S. officials said was covered under a fragile ceasefire deal.
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Oct 18, 2019
A Boeing pilot who tested the 737 Max jet in flight simulators in 2016 admitted in a series of text messages that he lied to the Federal Aviation Administration regarding the plane's performance.The text messages, reviewed by the New York Times, show that the lead technical pilot for the plane, Mark Forkner, was having trouble with an automated flight system known as MCAS. Malfunctions with MCAS caused two 737 Max jets to crash, killing a total of 346 people."It's running rampant in the sim," Forkner wrote to a colleague, referring to the simulation. "Granted, I suck at flying, but even this was egregious."Eight months prior to the messages, Forkner had asked the F.A.A. to remove the MCAS from the 737 Max pilot's manual. The F.A.A. approved the request, believing the system didn't present a danger."I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly)," Forkner texted.Boeing had provided transcripts of the texts to the Justice Department earlier this year as part of a criminal investigation. The transcript was provided to Congress on Friday in advance of hearings this month at which Boeing chief executive Dennis A. Muilenburg is scheduled to testify on the crashes for the first time.Forkner and Boeing did not immediately comment on the report.F.A.A. Administrator Steve Dickinson castigated Boeing for not providing the messages to the F.A.A. at an earlier stage."I expect your explanation immediately regarding the content of this document and Boeing's delay in disclosing the document to its safety regulator," Dickinson wrote.In March 2019 w
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Oct 18, 2019
At a press conference on Friday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., took several questions about White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney's initial statement and clarification on whether there was a quid pro quo between the Trump administration and the president of Ukraine.
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Oct 18, 2019
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was "very clear in cleaning up his statement" on whether President Trump floated a quid pro quo to Ukrainian leaders.
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Oct 18, 2019
A woman described as a person of interest in the abduction of a 3-year-old Alabama girl is denying any involvement. Attorneys for 29-year-old Derick Irisha Brown of Birmingham released a statement Friday saying she had no role in the kidnapping and hopes for the safe return of Kamille "Cupcake" McKinney. Brown and a man were arrested earlier this week after being described as persons of interest in the child's abduction from a birthday party last weekend.
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Oct 18, 2019
Between 2016 to 2019, the report notes seven sightings of the Tasmanian tiger. It "had black stripes on the back side of the body."
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Oct 18, 2019
Virginia State Police/HandoutA Virginia man who is behind bars for killing his girlfriend has now been charged with the murder of his wife three decades ago, prosecutors announced Friday.Jose Rodriguez-Cruz, 53, was indicted by a Stafford County grand jury for the May 1989 murder of 28-year-old Marta Haydee Rodriguez. Rodriguez-Cruz is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for the 2009 murder of his girlfriend, Pamela Butler, who was a federal worker in Washington, D.C.During a Friday press conference, Stafford County Commonwealth's Attorney Eric Olsen announced that the former military police officer, who was discharged after threatening to harm his female superior twice, has been charged with first-degree murder and the unlawful concealment of his wife's body, finally bringing a 30-year investigation to a close. Cops: NYPD Officer Ordered Hit on Estranged Husband, Boyfriend's Kid"This is the ultimate act of domestic violence and it's noteworthy that in the month of October justice is going to be delivered for Marta Rodriguez," Olson said, pointing out that October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Rodriguez was last seen on May 1, 1989, as she walked to a bus stop after leaving her job as a nurse's aide. Prosecutors allege Rodriguez-Cruz murdered his first wife shortly after she told police he had assaulted and kidnapped her—but before she could testify against him in court."If I can't have her, no one will," Rodriguez-Cruz once said, according to 2017 court doc
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Oct 18, 2019
More than 80 years since the last thylacine in captivity died and almost 40 years since it was declared extinct, rumours of the Tasmanian Tiger's survival have been reignited by a newly published document. The thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger, was once Australia's top predator but the last one in captivity died in 1936. Tasmanian officials say "there is no evidence to confirm the thylacine still exists" but a document published this week by the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) features numerous accounts from farmers, bushwalkers, tourists and others claiming to have seen the striped carnivore over the past three years. The Department received eight reports in that period of thylacine sightings, sometimes of an adult with cubs, and usually at dusk or dawn in the northern and western parts of the island state. Two Western Australian tourists recorded in the document said they saw a striped animal the size of a "large kelpie" in February last year and were "100 per cent certain" it was a Tasmanian Tiger. In April 2017 a motorist included in the document said he saw a thylacine run across the Murchison Highway. "If it was a cat, it was a bloody big one," he said. Engravings and rock art by Aboriginal people depicting the thylacine have been found dating back to before 1000 BC, and it is believed some depictions of the animal are much older, including in the north of Western Australia - as far away
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Oct 18, 2019
As chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Cummings played a key role in various investigations of Trump, and the two often clashed.
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Oct 18, 2019
Immediately after acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney announced Thursday that President Donald Trump's Doral golf club will host next year's G7 summit, Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano declared such a move represents a clear emoluments clause violation.During Thursday's broadcast of Fox Business Network's Cavuto: Coast to Coast, eponymous host Neil Cavuto noted that the announcement of the G7 location "is effectively saying the president has given himself this contract."Pointing out that previous summits in the United States took place at Camp David and Sea Island, Cavuto said the White House is arguing that holding the event at the president's property is not a violation of the emoluments clause. "I believe the judge has a different notion of that," Cavuto added, turning to Napolitano."It's not my notion," the judge replied. "It's the Constitution's notion. The Constitution does not address profits, it addresses any present, as in a gift, any emolument as in cash of any kind whatever. I'm quoting the emoluments clause, from any king, prince or foreign state."Explaining that this wouldn't be an issue if this were a meeting of U.S. government officials, Napolitano once again stated that the emoluments clause is to prevent the president from receiving gifts or cash from foreign entities. "He has bought himself an enormous headache now with the choice of this," he continued. "This is about as direct and profound a violati
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Oct 18, 2019
Heavily armed fighters surrounded security forces in a Mexican city on Thursday and made them free one of drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's sons, after his capture triggered gunbattles and a prison break that sent civilians scurrying for cover. Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said a patrol by National Guard militarized police first came under attack from within a house in the city of Culiacan, 1,235 km (770 miles) northwest of Mexico City. After entering the house, they found four men, including Ovidio Guzman, who is accused of drug trafficking in the United States.
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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Ursula von der Leyen is off to a bad start. The incoming president of the European Commission and her cabinet were supposed to begin working Nov. 1. Instead, the commission will be lucky if it gets sworn in by Christmas. Even then, it may already be damaged goods. The whole process serves as an unsubtle metaphor for a union that keeps failing to rise above its internal divisions to confront its bigger problems.Von der Leyen, a former German defense minister, got her new job this summer in one of the byzantine political maneuvers the European Union specializes in. Suffice it to say that she largely had French President Emmanuel Macron to thank, and that both made a lot of enemies in the process. These include her compatriot Manfred Weber, the leader of the center-right bloc in the European Parliament, who was passed over for the presidency and is still seething.Undeterred, von der Leyen tried to put together a commission that was "balanced" in every way that matters in today's EU: between men and women, among parties in the Parliament, and with eastern, western, northern and southern member states getting adequate portfolios.But once the Parliament, citing ethical concerns, legitimately rejected two eastern candidates — a socialist Romanian woman and a conservative Hungarian man — their factions bayed for revenge. A liberal from a large western country had to go. So it was thumbs down for France's Sylvie Goulard, ostensibly because she was accused of financial shenanigans, but more likely because she was a confidante of Macron and von der Leyen. Weber tried not to show his schadenfreude. Macron was embarrassed and angry at von der Leyen. Everybody screamed betrayal.Now France, Hungary and Romania have to propose new commissioners for m
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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said his government wants to boost the country's budget for next year by almost 60% to $10 billion, even though it isn't clear how he would fund the increase.The increase is meant to fight poverty, Tshisekedi, who assumed office in January, said in a speech on the outskirts of the capital, Kinshasa. A $10 billion budget is still "meager for the great Congo, but we will get there progressively," he said.The largest and one of the least-developed nations in sub-Saharan Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo relies almost entirely on mining for its earnings. Tshisekedi has pledged to lift millions of people out of poverty over the next five years through investments in water, electricity, and infrastructure. More than three-quarters of the population of 81 million people make do with less than $1.90 per day, according to the United Nations.The announcement comes after the International Monetary Fund criticized Congo's budgeting process and said the country needs to increase the efficacy of its revenue collection. Congo and the IMF are discussing the possibility of a loan program."Budget execution bears little relation to the approved budget because revenue projects -- driven mainly by political pressures to accommodate higher spending -- and expenditure projections have been overly optimistic," the IMF said in August.The amount is roughly $3 billion higher than what Budget Minister Jean-Baudouin Mayo proposed last month, which was already 15% higher than Congo's o
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Oct 18, 2019
A stealthy upgrade to its predecessor.
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Oct 18, 2019
The EU has made a "historic mistake" that risks destabilising the Balkans, senior officials warned Friday, after a handful of countries led by French President Emmanuel Macron again blocked membership talks for North Macedonia and Albania. There was widespread frustration and disappointment, particularly among eastern European countries keen to broaden the EU club, at the failure of the 28 leaders to agree to start formal accession negotiations with Skopje and Tirana. Leaders were deadlocked after some seven hours of heated backroom wrangling at a Brussels summit, with France alone in rejecting North Macedonia but joined by Denmark and the Netherlands in refusing Albania.
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Oct 18, 2019
REUTERSMayor Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign announced Friday that the co-host of a controversial campaign fundraiser was dropping out amid sharp public criticism over the role he played in delaying the release of a video of an infamous 2014 shooting death of a black teenage boy.The would-be co-host, Steve Patton, is a former Chicago city attorney who pushed to withhold video depicting the death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald until after a contentious mayoral runoff election, more than a year after a judge had ordered the video to be released. Patton already donated $5,600 to Buttigieg in June—a donation that the South Bend mayor's campaign said it would be returning. "Transparency and justice for Laquan McDonald is more important than a campaign contribution," Chris Meagher, the Buttigieg campaign's national press secretary, told The Daily Beast. "We are returning the money he contributed to the campaign and the money he has collected. He is no longer a co-host for the event and will not be attending."Patton's role in the Friday fundraiser, first reported by the Associated Press, prompted sharp criticism of Buttigieg, including from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the city's most prominent civil rights leader, who called on the Democratic nominee to "adjust his schedule."Buttigieg's campaign had initially declined to comment on the story, directing the Associated Press to his "Douglass Plan" to end systemic racism.Buttigieg, who is struggling in the polls among black voters, has had difficul
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Oct 18, 2019
"You know, I haven't seen any polling showing that nationally, on average, that anybody else is a front-runner," Joe Biden said.
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Oct 18, 2019
Plans have been pushed back a day to bring down two giant, unstable construction cranes in a series of controlled explosions before they can topple onto historic New Orleans buildings, the city's fire chief said Friday, noting the risky work involved in placing explosive on the towers. Making it happen, putting people back in danger," McConnell said. Light, intermittent rain and winds were complicating efforts Friday as workers in buckets suspended from another crane worked to prepare the site, McConnell said.
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Oct 18, 2019
A 20-year-old gang member has confessed to being one of two shooters in a gunfight that turned a lively summer community festival in Brooklyn into a blood-drenched nightmare, police said Thursday. One person died and 11 were wounded when Kyle Williams and a second, yet-unidentified gunman opened fire, possibly on each other, during the Brownsville neighborhood's annual Old Timers Day celebration July 27, police said. Police arrested Williams on Wednesday and he confessed to the shooting during questioning, Deputy Chief Michael Kemper said.
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Oct 18, 2019
Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate landed in Pakistan's capital Islamabad on Friday, after turbulence forced the couple to stay overnight in Lahore in a change to their tightly-choreographed itinerary. On Thursday an RAF Voyager carrying the royals, who are on a four-day official visit to Pakistan, aborted landings in Islamabad and nearby Rawalpindi due to severe turbulence.
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Oct 18, 2019
A disturbance in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico is likely to become a tropical storm that will hit the northern U.S. Gulf Coast with wind and rain, forecasters said Thursday.
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Oct 18, 2019
A spokesperson for the US counter-ISIS mission said that the procedure was pre-planned, and reduced the base's military usefulness.
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Oct 18, 2019
Donald Trump's administration announced a ceasefire in northeastern Syria after paving the way for Turkey's offence to occur in the first place, with the president celebrating the move as a "great day for civilisation".The announcement was followed up swiftly by comments from the Turkish government casting doubt on the news, and criticism from those who have suggested that the Trump administration is giving the Turkish government a win by forcing Kurds to leave the region or face an uncertain future.
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Oct 18, 2019
A global finance watchdog kept Pakistan off its terrorism financing blacklist on Friday but warned Islamabad it only had until February to improve or face international action. The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, which tackles money laundering, said it was concerned that Pakistan had failed to complete the action plan first by a January deadline, then a May deadline and now October. "The FATF strongly urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by February 2020," it said in a statement.
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Oct 18, 2019
A former employee of Huntington Ingalls Industries, the Virginia-based shipbuilder that helps to construct all of the U.S. Navy's submarines, has sued the company in federal court, claiming that the firm lied about problems with the external coating on Virginia-class attack subs.
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Oct 18, 2019
One of the reasons border apprehensions have dropped from their alarming peak in May is that Mexico has been pretty aggressive in stopping third-country nationals from traversing its territory on their way north to make bogus asylum claims so they can be released into the U.S.But why has Mexico been willing to work with us like this? It's especially curious because in the past, Mexico was not at all eager to help us limit illegal immigration, a pattern we might have expected to intensify with last year's election as president of left-wing populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (commonly known as AMLO, pronounced as a word rather than initials).No doubt President Trump's tariff threats had some effect. Three-quarters of Mexico's exports go to the U.S., and despite increased integration of our economies over the past couple of decades, they still need us a lot more than we need them. Also, Trump's mercurial temperament clearly has the Mexicans worried that he could do something rash (similar to Iran's fears about Reagan if the hostages weren't released before he was inaugurated).But it's unlikely that these things would be enough to move a sometimes touchy nationalist like AMLO. Rather, I think a big part of the explanation is that the current flow of illegals is mainly made up of foreigners, not Mexicans. Earlier waves of mass infiltration across our southern border consisted mainly of Mexicans, and while Mexico quickly took back its people who had been nabbed by the Border P
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Oct 18, 2019
The strike, which started on Sept. 15, is the longest GM work stoppage since the 1970s
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Oct 18, 2019
The latest news and headlines from Yahoo! News. Get breaking news stories and in-depth coverage with videos and photos.
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Oct 18, 2019
Officials said late Thursday that troops had come under fire from a house while on patrol and found Ovidio Guzmán López inside. Mexican authorities say they backed off an attempt to capture a son of drug trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman after cartel gunmen shooting heavy weapons and burning vehicles that paralyzed the capital of Mexico's Sinaloa state — apparently outgunning lawmen.
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Oct 18, 2019
Whatever westerners thought about images of Kim Jong Un trekking through mountain snows astride a white stallion, the subliminal message sent to North Koreans was to instill confidence that they have a man of strength and destiny holding the reins of power. The Internet was flooded with online jokes and memes after North Korea's state media released the photographs. "The main thing to keep in mind is that while we might think Kim looks goofy, he doesn't think that," Jeffrey Lewis, a North Korea expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said on Twitter.
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Oct 18, 2019
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted that the Russians are attempting to undermine the 2020 election by backing Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) as a third-party candidate, stating "she's the favorite of the Russians."Appearing on Obama campaign manager David Plouffe's podcast, Clinton made a number of claims regarding Russian meddling in U.S. elections, including that Gabbard's substantial social-media support relies on Russian bots. Gabbard was the most-searched candidate after the first and second Democratic debates."I think they've got their eye on someone who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate," Clinton said on the podcast. "She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far."Clinton's comments come after Gabbard called the coverage of her campaign by The New York Times and CNN "completely despicable" during the fourth Democratic debate Tuesday night."The New York Times and CNN have also smeared veterans like myself for calling to an end to this regime-change war," Gabbard told the crowd in Ohio. "Just two days ago, the New York Times put out an article saying I am a Russian asset and an Assad apologist and all these different smears. This morning, a CNN commentator said on national television that I'm an asset of Russia."In August, Gabbard also told CNN that she would not run as a third-
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Oct 18, 2019
Ocean researchers have pulled a 13-foot-long great white shark from the seas that had bite marks from an even bigger predator.
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Oct 18, 2019
A good or bad idea?
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Oct 18, 2019
Fox News attempted to help "acting" White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney clean up his admission of a "quid pro quo" with Ukraine, but Fox & Friends Weekend host and reporter Ed Henry wasn't quite ready to let him off the hook.After telling the press corp on Thursday that there is "going to be political influence in foreign policy" and that they should just "get over it," Mulvaney released a statement later in the day that walked back his comments and blamed the media for supposedly twisting his words."Once again, the media has decided to misconstrue my comments to advance a biased and political witch hunt against President Trump," Mulvaney said. "Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election." When he heard those words read aloud on Fox Friday morning, Henry said, "I'm not sure what Mick Mulvaney's case is. The media is to blame for writing down what he said, for Fox recording on video what he said? He stood at the podium and connected the dots for Democrats!" It was only after both Democrats and some Republicans pounced on what Mulvaney had said that he decided to walk it back, Henry explained. "So if it's the media's fault, I'm not quite sure why the White House chief of staff is clarifying," he added. Henry has been straddling the line between Trump critic and defender on impeachment for the past few weeks after the president lashed out at him for daring to suggest that pressuring a foreign co
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Oct 18, 2019
A Boeing Co senior pilot said he might have unintentionally misled regulators, in a series of internal messages from 2016 that became public Friday, plunging the world's largest airplane maker into a fresh crisis. The messages, first reported by Reuters, sent Boeing's shares tumbling, prompted a demand by U.S. regulators for an immediate explanation, and a new call in Congress for Boeing to shake up its management as it continues to grapple with the fallout from two fatal crashes that have grounded its fastest-selling plane. In a transcript of instant messages between two employees, the 737 MAX's then-chief technical pilot, Mark Forkner, raised questions about the performance of the so-called MCAS anti-stall system in the airplane.
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Oct 18, 2019
Mykola Zlochevsky, the Kremlin's former minister of natural resources and the founder of Burisma Holdings, reportedly hired Hunter Biden "as a helpful non-executive director with a powerful name," according to a Friday Reuters report.Oleksandr Onyshchenko, a Ukrainian businessman and former politician who knows Zlochevsky says Burisma's founder hired Biden in 2014 "to protect [the company]" in the face of potential prosecution. Zlochevsky was investigated for tax violations, money-laundering, and corruption and initially cleared of any wrongdoing. Earlier this month, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka told reporters that 15 cases involving Zlochevsky were being reviewed.According to sources, Hunter Biden never visited Ukraine, but participated regularly in biannual board meetings, all of which were held outside Ukraine. Sources also said Biden was appointed during a time when Burisma was seeking foreign investment, a process which Biden helped by finding lawyers for the potential deal, which ultimately broke down when war broke out in east Ukraine. "He was a ceremonial figure," a source said.Reuters reviewed payment records allegedly from Burisma which show $3.4 million in payments to a company headed by Biden's business partner, Devon Archer, called Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC, between April 2014 and November 2015.Every month during that 18-month period, the records show two payments of $83,333 for "consulting services," which sources say were intend
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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's decision not to ban political ads that Democrats say are inaccurate drew praise from the top Republican in the House of Representatives Friday.Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, said he appreciated Zuckerberg's comments on Thursday that policing political speech would be undemocratic."The idea of banning speech you might not like is nonsense, but sadly the mindset is creeping into places like college campuses and our presidential campaign platforms," McCarthy told reporters. "Yesterday was a heartwarming reminder that free expression is the best business model in the world."In recent weeks, the presidential campaigns of Democrats Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren have called on Facebook to remove ads from President Donald Trump's campaign that include claims with no evidence. Facebook has declined to do so, raising the larger question of whether such ads on social media should be regulated."I don't think most people want to live in a world where you can only post things that tech companies judge to be 100% true," Zuckerberg said Thursday at Georgetown University in Washington. "People should be able to see for themselves what politicians are saying.""In a democracy, I believe people should decide what's credible, not tech companies," Zuckerberg said.\--With assistance from Emily Wilkins.To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story:
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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- French President Emmanuel Macron heaped pressure on the British Parliament to back Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, saying the U.K.'s departure from the European Union shouldn't be delayed a moment longer.With Parliament due to vote on the revised agreement on Saturday, Macron's remarks echoed the message Johnson himself has been sending to reticent MPs: it's now or never. "I don't think a new extension should be granted," Macron told reporters after a summit of EU leaders in Brussels, where the deal had been rubber stamped. "The Oct. 31 deadline must be met."Macron's stance increases the risk that the U.K. will crash out of the EU without a deal on Oct. 31. But the reality is more nuanced, according to EU diplomats who doubt the bloc will ever throw the U.K. off a cliff without a safety net. The pound dipped on the comments, and then recovered.Selling the DealAfter sealing a revised deal with the EU on Thursday, Johnson is spending Friday frantically talking to politicians from his own and other parties as he tries to rustle up a majority. The prime minister needs to add 61 votes to the tally his predecessor Theresa May managed when her version of the Brexit deal was defeated for a third and final time in March.The new agreement differs from May's agreement because only Northern Ireland rather than the whole U.K. will continue to apply the EU's customs rules. That's upset the province's Democratic Unionist Party whose MPs say they won't back Johnson's deal on Saturday.If J
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Oct 18, 2019
The head of a Maldivian activist group said Thursday police contacted her as part of an investigation into a report published by her organization that has been accused of slandering Islam. The Maldives government ordered the Maldivian Democracy Network to suspend its activities a week ago because of its 2016 report on religious radicalization in the Indian Ocean archipelago. The group's executive director, Shahinda Ismail said the report has been on the group's website for three years.
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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- On Oct. 13, Chris Wallace, the host of "Fox News Sunday," grilled Secretary of Defense Mark Esper about the administration's response to the growing Ukraine scandal. That night, President Donald Trump jumped on Twitter and compared Wallace unfavorably to his late father."Somebody please explain to Chris Wallace of Fox, who will never be his father (and my friend), Mike Wallace, that the Phone Conversation I had with the President of Ukraine was a congenial & good one," Trump tweeted.Expect much more of the same to follow.Two days earlier, Shepard Smith, whose tough and factual reporting style often drew the ire of Trump and his supporters, abruptly left the network. For years, Smith served not only as Fox News' premier breaking news anchor but also as the most prominent banner carrier for the network's team of straight-news reporters. His abdication positions Wallace as his natural successor.It's a role guaranteed to attract fire. Trump has made it clear that he doesn't appreciate it when his favorite TV channel exposes its viewers to unflattering news about him.Smith's departure also makes Wallace more important than ever to the network, which relies on the credibility of its news division to counter criticism about its Trump-friendly prime-time hosts."Smith leaving is a big deal" because Wallace can't do it on his own, said Andrew Tyndall, publisher of the Tyndall Report, which monitors newscasts. To be considered a legitimate news outlet, "you can't just point to one person."Fox News says Wallace is just o
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Oct 18, 2019
Mexico has deported more than 300 Indian nationals to New Delhi, the National Migration Institute said late on Wednesday, in what it described as an unprecedented transatlantic deportation.
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Oct 18, 2019
For long-shot moderates trying to compete for the Democratic presidential nomination, this week's debate in Ohio marked a significant shift in strategy. Attacking former Vice President Joe Biden, the longtime front-runner in the race, was out. Going after U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the candidate who has grabbed the momentum in the nominating contest, was in.
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Oct 18, 2019
The disasters in Ukraine and Syria prove once again that Trump's essential character rendered him unfit to be President from day one.
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Oct 18, 2019
The Kremlin said late on Thursday it expected to receive information from Turkey after Ankara agreed a deal with the United States to halt its offensive in Syria for five days, the RIA news agency reported. Turkey agreed on Thursday to pause its offensive in Syria to let Kurdish forces withdraw from a "safe zone" Ankara had sought to capture, in a deal hailed by the Trump administration and cast by Turkey as a complete victory. "We expect to receive information from Turkey," RIA quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
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Oct 18, 2019
Meaning better than America's M1 Abrams? We take a look.
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Oct 18, 2019
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent an offering to Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni Shrine for war dead on Thursday, prompting neighboring South Korea to call on Japan to reflect on its wartime actions. Abe sent a "masakaki" ceremonial evergreen branch to the shrine for the autumn festival that runs until Sunday, a spokeswoman at Yasukuni said.
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Oct 18, 2019
General Motors' proposed agreement to end a labor strike includes a wage increase and faster transition to fulltime status for temporary workers but permanently shuts four plants, according to a union summary released Thursday. The United Auto Workers said they achieved "key gains" during negotiations held during a strike launched on September 26, according to a 19-page summary released by the union, while UAW leadership met with local chapters to discuss the deal. The UAW announced Wednesday it had reached a preliminary bargain but said the strike would continue until its national council approved the agreement and the stoppage could be extended until the full membership votes.
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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- Puerto Rico's senate majority leader has introduced a bill to combat corruption in the bankrupt U.S. commonwealth, whose officials have faced presidential criticism and federal prosecution as it rebuilds after 2017's devastating Hurricane Maria.The bill by Senator Carmelo J. Rios-Santiago of the ruling New Progressive Party, would require government contractors to use software that would track hours worked, screen time used and subject matter handled."This is a good step we can take as a government to show that we're doing our part to make sure money is well spent," Rios-Santiago said in an interview. "It will help us keep track that people are spending money on what they're supposed to be spending it on."In recent months, Puerto Rico has seen several high-profile arrests.In July, the island's former secretary of education and the former head of its health insurance administration were indicted along with the head of an accounting firm and three others. They face allegations of theft, money laundering and wire fraud.Last month, two Federal Emergency Management Agency officials who oversaw the reconstruction of Puerto Rico's electrical grid and the former president of Cobra Acquisitions were also arrested on fraud and conspiracy charges linked to recovery efforts from Hurricane Maria, which killed thousands.President Donald Trump says recovery costs have been inflated by corruption on the island; opponents on the island say his administration is discriminating against the predominantly Latino population.To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Deibert in San Juan at mdeibert@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Matthew Bristow at m
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Oct 18, 2019
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked out of a meeting with Donald Trump about the crisis in Syria Wednesday after she said the president had had a "very serious meltdown" and insulted her in front of other congressional leaders.
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Oct 18, 2019
REUTERSMOSCOW—"The American military have taken away or burned everything valuable," a Russian TV presenter noted this week, showing clips from blogger videos shot in a U.S. military outpost in Syria abandoned under orders from President Donald J. Trump. Here was the security gate, unmanned. There were refrigerators still full of soft drinks, and a regulation American football in a plastic crate. Great voyeuristic fun—for the Kremlin.Here in the Russian capital government ideologues have been celebrating "a triumph" for Russia after America's sudden retreat, made in what appeared to be panicked haste after years on the ground backing up Kurdish-led fighters in battles against the so-called Islamic State. Russia Prepares the Way for Bashar al-Assad's Brutal Endgame in Nothern SyriaIt's been half a century since Moscow could feel this smug. "The last time Soviet state officials entered American army bases was in Vietnam," independent military analyst Alexander Golts told The Daily Beast. "When various Russian publications describe Washington as 'our enemy,' and when Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff, tells us there is no peace, just different forms of war, the Russian military taking over an American base does look like a victory." The images also underscored the new balance of power in the Middle East, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has shifted decisively toward Moscow as he appears to make key strategic decisions while offering himself a
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Oct 18, 2019
Multnomah County Detention CenterRalph Griffith, a serial bank robber who penned a self-published book about his time in prison with Bernie Madoff, appeared in federal court Wednesday to face his fifth bank robbery charge.Griffith spent his 68th birthday at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse, where he was ordered to remain in jail pending his trial for an alleged armed robbery of a Milwaukie Wells Fargo Bank in July, The Oregonian first reported.The career criminal, who describes himself as the founder and executive producer of XAK Media Group, was released from California prison in August 2017 after spending time behind bars for three San Francisco bank robberies in 2003. He was also previously convicted of a bank robbery in 1985.Billionaire David Koch, Who Reshaped American Politics and Paved the Way for Trump, Has DiedShortly after his 2017 prison release, Griffith wrote a self-published book, The Real Bernie Madoff: Our 7 Years Together in Prison, about his time behind bars at a North Carolina federal prison with the former financier, who was convicted of running one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history."I lived with the man," Griffith said in a YouTube video about the book. "After about seven years I got a pretty good understanding about what Bernie Maddoff was up to."The 68-year-old has also written fictional accounts of his life of crime, including a four-paragraph story called "The Proper Way to Rob a Bank" and another inv
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Oct 18, 2019
Two businessmen have pleaded not guilty to conspiring with associates of Rudy Giuliani to make illegal campaign contributions. David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin made a federal court appearance Thursday afternoon in Manhattan.
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Oct 18, 2019
China said Thursday it detained two U.S. citizens on suspicion of organizing others to illegally cross the border, amid sharpening tensions between the sides over trade, technology and other sensitive issues. Police in the eastern province of Jiangsu arrested Alyssa Petersen and Jacob Harlan on Sept. 27 and Sept. 29, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said. "The department handling the case has informed the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai in a timely manner, arranged U.S. diplomats to conduct consular visits and protected the legitimate rights and interests of the two," Geng said at a regular press briefing.
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Oct 18, 2019
The climbers were closing in on the top of California's second-highest peak when they came upon the grisly discovery of what looked like a bone buried in a boulder field. Tyler Hofer and his climbing partner moved rocks aside and discovered an entire skeleton. The discovery a week ago beneath Mount Williamson unearthed a mystery: Who was the unfortunate hiker?
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Oct 18, 2019
REUTERS/Andrew InnerarityAlan Dershowitz may have lost his battle to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre—who claims Jeffrey Epstein kept her as his "sex slave" and forced her to have sex with Dershowitz. But the Harvard Law professor scored his own victory: persuading a federal judge to disqualify Giuffre's attorney, David Boies, and his firm, from her case.In an opinion filed Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska said she would deny Dershowitz's motion to dismiss the case—Dershowitz claims Giuffre is lying about having sex with him and tried to extort him—but grant his motion to disqualify Boies' firm. It was a blow to Boies, who's sparred with Dershowitz for decades, and Sigrid McCawley, a partner at the firm who represents multiple victims of Epstein.In a statement, McCawley said her firm would appeal Preska's decision to remove them from Giuffre's litigation in Manhattan federal court."Today's decision rejects Alan Dershowitz's chronic capacity to make this case about anything but the facts and what he has been accused of by our client, Virginia Giuffre. The defamation case against Alan Dershowitz is going forward and he will have to face justice," McCawley, a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, said in a statement."The decision, however, to disqualify our firm, which has had the privilege of representing Virginia and advocating for her brave voice and continued call for justice, is deeply disappointing and it will be promptly appealed."Jeffrey Epstein Ac
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Oct 18, 2019
Atatiana Jefferson, 28, was killed in her home on Saturday by Aaron Dean, a Fort Worth police officer who has resigned and been charged with murder.
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Oct 18, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- One of Hong Kong's most prominent protest organizers -- including a march planned for Sunday -- was recovering after being attacked on the street by men wielding hammers.Jimmy Sham -- convenor of the Civil Human Rights Front, which has organized many of the city's largest peaceful protests -- issued a plea from his hospital bed Thursday for police to allow the march go ahead in the Tsim Tsa Tsui area as planned. Sham was assaulted by four to five men Wednesday while on his way to a meeting in nearby Mong Kok -- the second time he's been attacked since August."When Jimmy was at his street counter, many of the citizens expressed that they really hope there will be a safe march on Sunday," the Civil Human Rights Front said in a statement Thursday. "Jimmy therefore urges the Police to issue Letter of No Objection, so that Hongkongers can express their views."The Civil Human Rights Front has helped organize several of the largest protests ever held in the former British colony, including two largely peaceful marches in June that drew more than a million people. The demonstrations have since mushroomed into a broader push for greater democracy, leading to regular clashes between protesters and police and occasional incidents of mob violence.On Thursday, Hong Kong's embattled leader, Carrie Lam, was forced to repeatedly halt a question session in the city's legislature as opposition lawmakers demanded her to step down and address other protester demands. The coming weekend will be the Asian financial cente
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Oct 18, 2019
Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters donned cartoon character masks as they formed human chains across the semiautonomous Chinese city on Friday night, in defiance of a government ban on face coverings at public assemblies. Chinese internet users have joked that Chinese President Xi Jinping resembles the talking bear, leading the country's censors to scrub online references to the character. The protesters were taking a lighthearted approach to oppose the government's decision this month to invoke colonial-era emergency regulations banning face masks at rallies as it struggles to contain the chaotic protest movement.
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Oct 18, 2019
After another officer told him to push a suspect off of a roof, Officer Plenio Massiah did - and it was caught on a body camera
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Oct 18, 2019
Brexit could overturn the lives of more than a million Britons living in the European Union in terms of residency, travel, and social security.
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Oct 18, 2019
The retired Navy SEAL William McRaven said a retired general told him, "'I don't like the Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!'"
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