FOX NEWS: California man charged in Chinese spy operation

California man charged in Chinese spy operation



John Demers, leader of the DOJ China Initiative, on the Department of Justice's fight against Chinese espionage.

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FOX NEWS: President Trump defends Ukraine call amid impeachment inquiry

President Trump defends Ukraine call amid impeachment inquiry



House Democrats subpoena Giuliani; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' all-star panel.

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FOX NEWS: How do impeachment proceedings play out in the House?

How do impeachment proceedings play out in the House?



Constitution gives House sole responsibility to impeach; Mark Meredith reports.

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FOX NEWS: California governor signs bill allowing college athletes to hire agents, earn money from endorsements

California governor signs bill allowing college athletes to hire agents, earn money from endorsements



NFL player Benjamin Watson reacts to new California law on 'The Story.'

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FOX NEWS: Funeral service for veteran with no immediate family expected to draw crowd

Funeral service for veteran with no immediate family expected to draw crowd



A Florida funeral service for a veteran who had no immediate family members is expected to draw a crowd of complete strangers after his story was widely shared online.

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FOX NEWS: Al Franken and Matt Lauer facing new allegations

Al Franken and Matt Lauer facing new allegations



New #metoo allegations surface; Trace Gallagher has the details.

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Wikipedia article of the day for October 1, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for October 1, 2019 is Simon Hatley.
Simon Hatley (1685 – after 1723) was an English sailor involved in two hazardous privateering voyages to the South Pacific Ocean. With his ship beset by storms south of Cape Horn, Hatley shot an albatross, an incident immortalised by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (illustrated). Hatley went to sea in 1708 under Captain Woodes Rogers, but was captured by the Spanish on the coast of Ecuador and was tortured by the Inquisition. Hatley's second voyage, under George Shelvocke, was the source of the albatross incident, recorded in Shelvocke's journal for 1 October 1719, and also ended with his capture by the Spanish, who held him as a pirate for looting a Portuguese ship. Hatley returned to Britain in 1723, though he hastily sailed to Jamaica lest he risk trial for piracy. His fate thereafter is unknown. In 1797, Wordsworth suggested Hatley's shooting of an albatross as the basis of a poem, which Coleridge published in Lyrical Ballads (1798).

Republican leadership memo suggests Senate can't block trial if House votes to impeach

Republican leadership clarified that the Senate must take action if the lower chamber approves articles of impeachment against President Trump.

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California man arrested after leading police on 2-hour chase through corn maze

A California man was caught and arrested by police Saturday morning, but not before he managed to elude them for two hours while hiding inside a corn maze.

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CBS News poll: Majority of Americans, Democrats approve impeachment inquiry

More than half of Americans — and an overwhelming number of Democrats — say they approve of the fact that Congress has opened an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. But as the inquiry begins, there is no national consensus on how to assess the president's actions.

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Floods kill 113 in north India in late monsoon burst, jail, hospital submerged

Heavy rains have killed at least 113 people in India's Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states over the past three days, officials said on Monday, as flood waters swamped a major city, inundated hospital wards and forced the evacuation of inmates from a jail. India's monsoon season that begins in June usually starts to retreat by early September, but heavy rains have continued across parts of the country this year, triggering floods. An official said that at least 93 people had died in most populous Uttar Pradesh since Friday after its eastern areas were lashed by intense monsoon showers.

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7 Trump administration quotes from the last week that you're going to read in a textbook one day

I am not a crook.Some 46 years ago, President Richard Nixon made that infamous declaration during a press conference in Orlando, Florida. While the quote is not exactly another "ask not what your country can do for you," his five words, perhaps more than anything else, came to define an era of American history. Today they are printed in countless history books as a study in irony, corruption, and holding our leaders accountable.Now, nearly half a century on, the murmurs of impeachment have started once again. And although no one can know the future, we very well may be listening to the words -- or reading the tweets -- that will write the chapters of our future history books. Here are seven quotes from the past week alone that students could be reciting in classrooms half a century from now.1\. "In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. government officials that the president of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election." -- The whistleblower complaint, declassified Sept. 26Over the past week, reports of an anonymous intelligence officer's concerns about President Trump's July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the White House's attempted cover-up of the call, went from speculative to declassified. The now-public letter begins strikingly by accusing the president of the United States of pushing a foreign leader to investigate his potential 2020 political opponent.While the identity of the whistleblower remains closely guarded, that likely won't last forever; in the words of The Washington Post, "no one expects his anonymity to last as long as Deep Throat's did." However, his name -- and place in history -- could likewise be a future AP History test question, depending on what happens next.2\. "You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now." -- President Trump, Sept. 26You are never really off the record -- just ask the Watergate conspirators. Speaking at a private event on Thursday, President Trump was caught on tape yearning for the good old days when spies were executed. Even as a "joke," the quote is shocking, something more along the lines of what a dictator might say rather than the leader of the free world.House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has argued, though, that Trump's quote was intended to get out: "That kind of incitement to violence is only going to chill other witnesses when they come forward," he said. The whistleblower already reportedly fears for his safety, and the possibility of retaliation from Trump loyalists.Then there is the fact that, as The Week's Joel Mathis points out, Trump is "the president of the United States ... We must take his words and ideas seriously."3\. "I will be the hero! These morons -- when this is over, I will be the hero." -- Rudy Giuliani, Sept. 26Perhaps more than anything else, irony gives a political quote its staying power. And while this one might not be as short and sweet as Nixon's famous line, there is a certain poetry to Rudy Giuliani's insistence of his innocence to The Atlantic.The former mayor of New York turned Trump's personal lawyer, Giuliani has been lashing-out at critics for a week. His statements, though, could potentially lead investigators to information that could make both him and his boss vulnerable. Giuliani, after all, is tangled in the Ukraine web, having allegedly attempted to "seize an unsanctioned diplomatic role [in the country] for himself," as The Washington Post reports. Likewise, in the transcript of Trump's call with Zelensky, the American president pushes his Ukrainian counterpart to coordinate with Giuliani on dredging up Joe Biden-related dirt ... multiple times.Giuliani's insistence, then, that he will "be the hero" in this narrative seems doubtful if there is any veracity to the White House's own transcript of Trump's call. An alternative Giuliani quote from The Atlantic interview that might also find its place in textbooks could be: "If this guy is a whistleblower, then I'm a whistleblower too. You should be happy for your country that I uncovered this."4\. "If that perfect phone call with the President of Ukraine isn't considered appropriate, then no future President can EVER again speak to another foreign leader!" -- President Trump, Sept. 27 Republicans are clearly struggling to spin the whistleblower complaint into a nothingburger, seeing as most aren't exactly prepared to call it "perfect."Even with Trump's claims that the call was completely "appropriate," the White House seemed to treat the conversation differently. The New York Times reported late last week that "current and former officials said the White House used a highly classified computer system accessible to only a select few officials to store transcripts of [certain] calls," including the July call with Zelensky. Why? Well, the whistleblower has alleged that the administration tried to bury Trump's conversation with the Ukrainian president -- something that wouldn't likely have been the case if the call were considered "perfect" and "appropriate" by the administration, too.5\. "If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal." -- Robert Jeffress, quoted by President Trump, Sept. 29Sometimes it's not what you say, but what you quote. On Sunday, Trump tweeted a claim by Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress, who speculated that if Trump is impeached, "it will cause a Civil War."Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) slammed Trump for sharing the claim, tweeting, "I have visited nations ravaged by civil war ... I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President. This is beyond repugnant." But it also might be more than just an eye-popping pronouncement: "This tweet is itself an independent basis for impeachment -- a sitting president threatening civil war if Congress exercises its constitutionally authorized power," tweeted Harvard Law professor John Coates.6\. "Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser." -- President Trump, Sept. 29On Sunday, Trump claimed in a Twitter thread that he should be allowed to meet "the so-called 'Whistleblower.'" According to Brooklyn public defender Scott Hechinger, that's "grounds for impeachment, evidence of consciousness of guilt, active obstruction of justice, and just plain old unhinged and terrifying."It's also incorrect; as Hechinger adds, "the 6th Amendment Confrontation Clause does not entitle someone to 'meet' their accuser. If this was a criminal proceeding, an order of protection would already have issued. The Constitution allows -- in a criminal trial -- the right to confront on the witness stand."Trump's insistence that he meet the whistleblower also plays into a general theme of trying to expose the identity of the intelligence official, which many critics say is an intimidation tactic. It could also be literally life-threatening; the whistleblower's attorney has said "our client will be put in harm's way" were his identity to become known in the way Trump is publicly pushing for.7\. "Arrest for Treason?" -- President Trump, Sept. 30If you stop and think about it, "Trump Raises Idea of Arresting House Chairman for Treason" is an astonishing headline.While Trump's musings about arresting Schiff became an instant Twitter meme, the reality of the quote is more worrying. Trump claims that Schiff gave a summary of the transcript that "bore NO relationship to what I said on the call [with Zelensky]," although the Times writes that the summary indeed "appears to be drawn from several portions of the call, including statements from Mr. Trump to Mr. Zelensky."Joked Aaron Rupar of Vox: "What stage of authoritarianism is 'leader publicly calls for imprisonment of his political opponents'?"I'll leave that answer up to the historians.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.

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UPDATE 3-San Francisco tour guide charged with carrying U.S. secrets to China

A San Francisco tour guide has been charged with being an agent of the Chinese government, accused of picking up U.S. national security secrets from furtive locations and delivering them cloak and dagger style to Beijing, federal prosecutors said on Monday. Xuehua Peng, also known as Edward Peng, was arrested on Friday in the San Francisco suburb of Hayward, California, and was denied bail during an initial court appearance by a U.S. magistrate judge that same day, federal prosecutors said at a Monday morning news conference. "Defendant Xuehua (Edward) Peng is charged with executing dead drops, delivering payments, and personally carrying to Beijing, China, secure digital cards containing classified information related to the national security of the United States," Anderson said.

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Al-Shabaab attacks US base, EU convoy in Somalia

The Al-Shabaab militant group claimed responsibility for an attack on a US base in Somalia on Monday, as the European Union confirmed a separate strike against a convoy of Italian advisers. The raid on the base prompted a counter-attack by US forces who staged "two air strikes and used small arms fire targeting al-Shabaab terrorists," Major General William Gayler, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) director of operations said, adding that 10 "terrorists" died and a vehicle was destroyed.

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Trump’s Claims About Biden Aren’t ‘Unsupported.’ They’re Lies.

By BY MICHELLE GOLDBERG from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2neddLi

FOX NEWS: In 1981, Apple's Steve Jobs said computers would free us from drudgery

In 1981, Apple's Steve Jobs said computers would free us from drudgery



Talk about stepping back in time.

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'Front-row seat to history': The monumental week that changed impeachment and sent Congress into chaos

From frantic journalists swarming lawmakers to a news cycle that wouldn't slow, members of Congress saw a week of consequence and chaos that made impeaching President Donald Trump a possible reality.

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Rudy Giuliani claims he's 'the real whistleblower' and that no one will know the real story on Trump and Ukraine 'if I get killed'

Giuliani told Politico he believes he deserves whistleblower protection, but his attempts to defend himself have only further incriminated him.

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Former British leader defends Biden Ukraine scenario

Former British Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday supported the explanation offered as to why Vice President Joe Biden pressured the president of Ukraine in 2015 to crack down on corruption. Supporters of President Donald Trump — particularly his attorney Rudy Giuliani — have argued that Trump’s much-criticized July 25 phone call with the current president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, was appropriate because Biden had been corrupt in pushing Poroshenko to get rid of the state prosecutor.

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Kremlin warns US against releasing private calls between Putin and Trump amid Ukraine scandal

Russia has warned the US against publishing private conversations between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump as it emerged the White House may have restricted access to the president’s conversations with multiple world leaders. The comment was in response to the White House’s decision to publish a transcript of Mr Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after Democrats announced the beginning of a formal impeachment investigation into whether the US president pressured his counterpart to interfere in the 2020 election. Asked if Moscow is worried about transcripts of Mr Trump’s calls with the Russian President being similarly released, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "we would like to hope that it wouldn’t come to that in our relations, which are already troubled by a lot of problems." "The materials related to conversations between heads of states are usually classified according to normal international practice," he added. The publication of the call, in which Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky made critical comments about German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, has drawn acerbic comments from other Russian officials. "We are waiting for the party to continue," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. "Let them publish transcripts of conversations between NATO allies. It would also be useful to publish minutes of closed meetings at the CIA, the FBI and the Pentagon. Put it all on air!" Ms Zakharova also scoffed at Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to open an impeachment inquiry based on the call. "Is it the Democrats' job to make a laughing stock of the United States?" she said. "It's exactly what Ms Pelosi has done to Congress, the White House and other state institutions." A whistleblower complaint at the centre of the Ukrainian scandal claimed White House lawyers had ordered a verbatim transcript of the call between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky to be stored on a separate computer system to limit the number of people who could access it. US media reports suggest similar tactics were used with Mr Trump’s calls with other leaders, including Mr Putin and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammad Bin Salman. Current and former administration officials told CNN that at least one phone call with the crown prince in the aftermath of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was never circulated to the officials who would usually be given access to it. Access to at least one transcript of a call with Mr Putin was also tightly restricted, according to a former Trump administration official. The White House has not yet commented on the claims.

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White House adviser says Trump 'is the whistleblower’

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller defended President Trump’s attempts to have the Ukrainian president open an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, claiming on Sunday that the scandal was a “political hit job” by the “deep state” and that Trump was really the “whistleblower.”

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Elena Delle Donne Gets Help as Mystics Take Game 1 Over the Sun

By BY HOWARD MEGDAL from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2m5eALE

U.S. Officials Warn of Rising Threat From Qaeda Branch in Northwest Syria

By BY ERIC SCHMITT from NYT World https://ift.tt/2nFx4D9

FOX NEWS: California resident hospitalized with more than 100 bee stings

California resident hospitalized with more than 100 bee stings



A Southern California resident has been hospitalized after being stung by bees more than 100 times.

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FOX NEWS: California woman, 19, who livestreamed DUI crash that killed sister is released on parole after 26 months

California woman, 19, who livestreamed DUI crash that killed sister is released on parole after 26 months



A 19-year-old California woman who livestreamed her drunken-driving crash that killed her 14-year-old sister has been released on parole after serving 26 months in prison.

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Trump-Supporting Lawyers diGenova and Toensing Teamed Up With Giuliani to Dig Up Ukraine Dirt on Biden: Report

Fox NewsIn a bombshell report Sunday morning, Fox News reported that two frequent guests on the right-leaning cable news channel were “working off the books” to help former New York City mayor and current presidential attorney Rudy Giuliani dig up dirt on President Donald Trump’s leading Democratic opponent—and that the only person who knew about their involvement was the president himself.Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace broke the news that Giuliani wasn’t acting alone when it came to digging up Ukrainian dirt on Trump’s potential 2020 presidential opponent Joe Biden.“Two high-profile Washington lawyers, Joe diGenova, who’s been a fierce critic of the Democratic investigation, and his wife Victoria Toensing were working with Giuliani to get oppo research on Biden,” Wallace said at the top of his broadcast.“According to a top U.S. official, all three were working off the books apart from the administration,” Wallace added. “The only person in government who knows what they were doing is President Trump.”Giuliani has denied working with any other attorneys in his quest for Ukrainian-provided information on the Biden family in recent appearances on Fox News, denials that the network’s own reporting now call into question.“No,” Giuliani told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures, when asked if he had worked with other attorneys. “I didn’t work with anybody to try and get dirt on Joe Biden.”Requests for comment in response to Wallace’s report from diGenova & Toensing, LLP, their eponymous D.C.-based law firm, were not immediately returned. Requests to Giuliani and the White House have also not been returned. Both diGenova and Toensing have been frequent guests on Fox’s opinion shows, specifically Hannity and Lou Dobbs Tonight. This week, during an appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight, diGenova blasted Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano as “a fool” for assessing that Trump had committed a crime during his July 25 call with the Ukrainian president.The remarks sparked a multi-day, on-air scuffle between Fox News anchor Shepard Smith and Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Wallace also appeared to join in the internecine fighting over the network’s coverage of the growing scandal, implicitly criticizing the on-air commentary of some of his Fox News colleagues in recent days.Chris Wallace Clashes With Fox News Colleague Over Trump Defenders’ ‘Deeply Misleading’ Spin on UkraineBoth Toensing and diGenova have been two of the president’s fiercest defenders for years. Along with being frequent guests on Fox opinion shows and other conservative media outlets, the husband-wife team has had a close relationship with the president for a while.In March 2018, they were briefly tapped to join Trump’s special counsel legal team. Days later, however, the president decided against hiring the pair.“The president is disappointed that conflicts prevent Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing from joining the president’s special counsel legal team,” Trump attorney Jay Sekulow said at the time. “However, those conflicts do not prevent them from assisting the president in other legal matters. The president looks forward to working with them.”Revelations this week that Giuliani had been tasked by Trump to coordinate with Attorney General William Barr and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in investigating unproven allegations of corruption involving Biden, his son Hunter, and a Ukrainian energy company have pushed long-simmering Democratic support for an impeachment inquiry against the president to a rolling boil.“I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call, and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it,” Trump told Zelensky on a July 25 phone call, according to a rough transcript of the conversation released by the White House this week.Trump and Giuliani have, without providing evidence, accused the former vice president and frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination of supporting the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor to protect Burisma, an energy company advised by his youngest son, Hunter. “A lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great,” Trump said on the call with Zelensky, after asking the newly elected president of Ukraine for a “favor.”“Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.”This story is developing.Pompeo Grapples for Ways to Outlast Hurricane RudyRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Founders: Removal from Office Is Not the Only Purpose of Impeachment

Benjamin Franklin was a leading voice in the debates framing the Constitution.

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Trailblazing Texas deputy who was first local Sikh officer 'ruthlessly' killed during traffic stop

Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal, the county's first Sikh officer, was killed Friday during a traffic stop near Houston. Police have arrested Robert Solis.

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Iran's iconic anti-US murals make way for a new generation of artwork

Famous murals celebrating Iran's Islamic revolution daubed on walls of the former US embassy in Tehran have been erased to make way for new paintings to be unveiled on the fortieth anniversary of the hostage crisis. Three workers were on Sunday afternoon seen removing the original artwork with a sandblaster against the wall of Taleqani avenue, bordering the south side of what was once dubbed a US "spy nest" in central Tehran. On November 4, 1979, less than nine months after Iran's last shah was toppled, pro-revolution students took Americans hostage at the embassy to protest the ex-shah's admission to hospital in the US.

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Trump’s Big Lie About Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Ukraine Falls Apart

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photo by Alex Wong/GettyThe big lie spouted by Donald Trump and his allies in the unfurling Ukraine affair—an unprecedented abuse of public trust, which has now led directly to an impeachment inquiry—is that former Vice President Joe Biden urged the Ukrainians to fire the Kyiv general prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in order to save Biden’s son's hide. Many of Trump’s cronies and foot soldiers have already spun this line, from Donald Trump Jr. to Rudy Giuliani to Arthur Schwartz.Others have rightly pointed out that, in reality, Biden was not simply relaying the message pushed by the Obama administration, but that his position was supported by Ukrainian anti-corruption activists, European allies, and even groups like the International Monetary Foundation (IMF). As Tom Malinowski, former assistant secretary of state under Obama, recalled this week, “All of us working on Ukraine wanted this prosecutor gone, because he was NOT prosecuting corruption. So did the Europeans. So did the IMF. This didn't come from Joe Biden—he just delivered our message.”That’s all, of course, true. Anyone interested in the success of Ukraine’s democratic transition, and its efforts to clean up rampant corruption, wanted Shokin gone. But here’s something that seems to have been lost in this geopolitical shuffle. Not only was Biden not trying to protect his son, Hunter, who was then working at a Ukrainian energy company named Burisma. If anything, what the former vice president did was make the prosecution of his son’s company more likely, not less—a fact that seems to have been overlooked, but which flips Trump’s lies on their head. I’m not the first to make this point. A few months ago, when Giuliani first began laundering his accusations through friendly voices like The Hill’s John Solomon—a man with an outsized history of whitewashing post-Soviet kleptocracies—The Intercept’s Robert Mackey tried to untangle Giuliani’s ludicrous line of logic. Mackey’s conclusion: “By getting Shokin removed, Biden in fact made it more rather than less likely that the oligarch who employed his son would be subject to prosecution for corruption.”And it’s not difficult to see why. Shokin was, by any measure, a clear and present obstacle in Ukraine’s efforts to steer toward a transparent, democratic polity in the aftermath of the country’s successful 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution. Most charitably, Shokin’s work could have been described as ineffective; others would prefer the term “corrupt,” a hangover from the ancien régime, more accustomed to shakedowns and shirking his duties whenever it benefited him and his confidants. That reprehensible behavior could be seen, most pertinently, in the way Shokin treated an investigation into Burisma, the company on whose board Hunter Biden sat. Launched in 2014, the investigation focused specifically on the means and machinations of Burisma’s oligarchic owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. Initially, the investigation appeared a sign of Ukraine’s new ways, of a willingness to target all and sundry, regardless of political connection.But it quickly became apparent that Shokin had little interest in actually uprooting any corruption percolating within Burisma, or within Zlochevsky’s network. According to former members of Shokin’s staff—including one, Vitaliy Kasko, who reiterated a few months ago that Biden never pressured anyone to avoid looking into his son’s company—Shokin ignored offers of aid from foreign partners to track Zlochevsky’s international financial network. In particular, Shokin effectively ignored the U.K.’s move to freeze tens of millions of dollars allegedly attached to Zlochevsky, identified during a money-laundering investigation directly tied to the ousted Ukrainian regime. Even after Britain’s Serious Fraud Office pronounced that the funds linked to Zlochevsky were “believed to be the proceeds of… criminal conduct,” Shokin didn’t budge. He and his office declined, time and again, to send London the documents necessary to link the frozen funds to Zlochevsky’s kleptocratic malfeasance. Instead, even when the case went to a British court, those advocating for the funds to remain frozen found that someone in Shokin’s office—it was never quite clear who—had written a letter to the British judge claiming that Zlochevsky was not suspected in any crimes. The case was as clear as any to come out of post-2014 Ukraine. And then it collapsed. An arrest warrant for Zlochevsky lapsed. The funds were eventually unfrozen, and allowed to seep back into the offshore networks linked to Zlochevsky, unseen since. All because Shokin, and his office, thought it better to allow the previous regime’s kleptocratic methods to flood back in.  The Americans—and the Europeans, and the IMF, and all those in Ukraine who had marched and stood and demanded better—were livid. Shokin clearly didn’t “want to investigate” Burisma or Zlochevsky, as Daria Kaleniuk, the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center and perhaps Ukraine’s leading anti-corruption voice, recently said. Or as then-U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt pronounced in 2015, “Those responsible for subverting the case by authorizing those letters should—at a minimum—be summarily terminated.” This was the world into which Biden stepped, when he became the point-man for all of those demanding Shokin’s removal. And he did so, with thunder and alacrity. As with so many things Biden has done with Ukraine, he wasn’t concerned with whose toes he stepped on. When it came to pushing for Washington to supply arms to Kyiv to fight off Russian revanchism, it didn’t matter if Biden stood at odds with the president for whom he served. And when it came to ousting a prosecutor who refused to do his job, it didn’t matter if his son’s company—a company Hunter Biden should, obviously, never have joined—got caught in the cross-fire. Biden, as the messenger for demanding a new, and more effective, prosecutor, succeeded. That success meant that Ukraine would be more likely to investigate his son’s company. And in that success, a conspiracy theory—that Biden was actually trying to protect his son, rather than push Ukraine to a more democratic path, no matter who got caught in the middle—was born. In the time since, Shokin has taken to rewriting history, claiming that he was on the warpath trying to take down Zlochevsky. (Shokin’s preferred mouthpiece for spouting this revisionism? Solomon, unsurprisingly.) But just like the president’s claims that Biden was up to something nefarious, there’s nothing to back up Shokin’s claims. As Oliver Bullough, a British journalist who covered the Zlochevsky saga, wrote earlier this year, Solomon and the rest of the pro-Trump sycophants are “putting two and two together—and coming up with 22.” That’s putting it kindly. More broadly, they’re taking a bludgeon to anything resembling fact. The lies and spin and rank illiberalism now being spun by the White House are all in an effort to undercut a looming impeachment by rewriting a history most Americans are only now discovering. In pushing to oust the former prosecutor, Biden did the right thing, no matter the personal cost. And in pushing for impeachment, in the face of Trump’s unprecedented move to pressure Kyiv to investigate Biden, House Democrats are pursuing the right tack, no matter the political cost. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Hong Kong protesters to rally after another night of violence

Hong Kong protesters are to join a global "anti-totalitarianism rally" on Sunday, following another night of violent clashes with police after weeks of pro-democracy unrest in the Chinese-ruled city. Police fired tear gas and water cannon on Saturday night to disperse protesters who threw petrol bombs and rocks, broke government office windows and blocked a key road near the local headquarters of China's People's Liberation Army. Thousands, young and old, gathered peacefully on Saturday at a harbourside park to mark the fifth anniversary of the "Umbrella" pro-democracy movement which gridlocked streets for 79 days in 2014.

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Hong Kong’s Status as Neutral Ground at Risk as China Asserts Power

By BY PETER S. GOODMAN AND AUSTIN RAMZY from NYT Business https://ift.tt/2oqI2g4

M.L.B.’s Juggernauts Set to Clash After a Season of Extraordinary Numbers

By BY TYLER KEPNER from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2nGnFLy

Wikipedia article of the day for September 30, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for September 30, 2019 is IFF Mark II.
IFF Mark II was the first operational identification friend or foe system, developed by the Royal Air Force just before World War II. The Mark I, its predecessor, amplified the signals of the British Chain Home radar systems, triggering a radar display blip. It required manual tuning, and operators could not always distinguish between an enemy aircraft and a friendly one with a maladjusted IFF. The Mark II, deployed at the end of the Battle of Britain in late 1940, fixed this problem with an automatic gain control and three automatic tuners that covered a wider selection of radars. The Mark II's frequencies were sufficient for the early war period, but by 1942 many more radars were in use, including incompatible ones based on the cavity magnetron. The IFF Mark III eliminated the multiple tuners and operated on a single frequency that could be used with any radar; it entered service in 1943 and quickly replaced the Mark II.

Man Is Charged With Terrorism After Driving S.U.V. Through Illinois Mall

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Yankees Turn Their Focus to the Playoffs, and Stifling the Twins

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FOX NEWS: New Jersey police searching for 3 bronze plaques stolen from 9/11 memorial

New Jersey police searching for 3 bronze plaques stolen from 9/11 memorial



Three bronze plaques honoring the victims of Sept. 11 have been stolen from a memorial in New Jersey, just weeks after the world marked 18 years since the terror attacks, investigators said.

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Rwanda welcomes first group of African refugees from Libya

A group of 66 African refugees and asylum-seekers arrived in Kigali late Thursday, the UN said, the first of what could be thousands relocated from Libya under a new programme. Earlier this month, Rwanda signed a deal with the African Union (AU) and the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR agreeing to take in African refugees and asylum-seekers stranded in Libya.

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First Republican member of Congress voices support for Trump impeachment probe

Rep. Mark Amodei became the first GOP member of Congress to back the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

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Ivory Coast Leader Wants to Hand Over Power to New Generation

(Bloomberg) -- Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara is in favor of “handing over to the new generation” in next year’s presidential polls, but did not rule out running in the election.The 78-year-old, who has just over a year left of his second term in office, was addressing reporters in his hometown of Dimbroko after a four-day visit to the surrounding region.Ouattara addressed plans to amend the constitution to include an age limit for presidential hopefuls, saying “it’s part of the evolution of our country,” Seventy-five percent of the population is aged under 30 and “we can’t remain indifferent.” But he also said “don’t interpret this as me not being a candidate.”His fiercest political rivals include Henri Konan Bedie , 85, who broke away from the ruling coalition last year after Ouattara claimed a new constitution adopted in 2016 allows him to seek a third mandate if he wishes.Another, Laurent Gbagbo, 74, was acquitted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity committed after a disputed vote in 2010, but prosecutors are appealing the ruling.To contact the reporter on this story: Leanne de Bassompierre in Abidjan at ldebassompie@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Andre Janse van Vuuren at ajansevanvuu@bloomberg.net, Jacqueline Mackenzie, Keith CampbellFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Sixth-Grade Boys Allegedly Attack, Cut Girl’s ‘Ugly’ Dreadlocks at Private Christian School

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Courtesy Cynthia AllenAmari Allen was about to use the slide at the Immanuel Christian School playground on Monday when three white classmates appeared. Within “seconds,” the 12-year-old said, she was pushed down, her hands held behind her back as the boys called her names and cut off patches of her “ugly, nappy” dreadlocks. “One of the boys put his hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t scream while they used scissors on my hair,” she recalled to The Daily Beast on Thursday. "They were all laughing, calling me ugly, and saying I should have never been born.”The alleged assault only lasted “a minute or two” before the bell rang to signal the end of recess, the sixth grader said. The three boys took off running to go into their math class while Amari stayed on the slide, trying to collect herself before following behind. “They ran off laughing, and I was just sitting there,” the soft-spoken teenager said. “I’m hurt that it happened. All I want to ask them is, Why?”The Monday afternoon racist attack at the private Immanuel Christian School—an already controversial school where Karen Pence, the second lady of the United States, teaches art class part-time—has “destroyed” the Allen family, and they are now seeking legal and administrative retributions. Courtesy of Cynthia AllenAmari’s mother, Cynthia Allen, told The Daily Beast that the family met with school officials on Thursday morning to demand the three boys be removed and updated policies be put into place to ensure “this doesn’t happen again.” Allen also said Amari filed a police report. “We take seriously the emotional and physical well-being of all our students, and have a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of bullying or abuse. We are deeply disturbed by the allegations being made, and are in communication with the family of the alleged victim to gather information and provide whatever support we can,” the school said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “We have also reached out to law enforcement to ask them to conduct a thorough investigation, and further inquiries should be directed to the Fairfax County Police Department.”“All I am asking for is this to be resolved, if they can’t leave school, then I will,” Amari said. Her mother agreed, adding, “She’s in real pain but she wants justice.”The 53-year-old mom said it took two days for Amari to finally admit the attack even happened. At first, the 12-year-old told her mother that the missing parts of her hair were the result of playing “beauty salon” with another friend. “We continued to press her on it because it just didn’t sound like something she would do,” Cynthia Allen said. “Then she started breaking down crying, trembling, and shaking before telling us what happened.”Amari said she “instantly felt better” when she told her family about how the three sixth-grade boys pinned her down on the playground. She said while one boy covered her mouth, a second boy put her hands behind her back, and a third boy cut her dreadlocks while calling her names.“They called her ‘ugly,’ told her she was an ‘attention seeker,’ called her hair ‘nappy,’ all of these horrible things,” her mother said. “And when they ran away laughing, she just had to sit there and get herself together.” Amari admitted she initially denied that anyone cut her hair out of fear of retaliation. The three boys—including one that used to be her friend—are in six of her classes and she said she was afraid they “would come after me.”“They had scissors, so they could have done anything to me,” the sixth grader said. “I was afraid if I told the teacher they wouldn’t care.”Amari’s mom explained that this was not the first time her daughter had been subjected to bullying by these three classmates. Throughout the school year, the boys have allegedly been “taking her lunch every single day and calling her names.”“My concern is, how did they not see what was taking place, on the playground and all year,” Allen said. “Karen Pence, the vice president’s wife, works at the school. There is security and secret service everywhere. How did they not know!”The Immanuel Christian School, which enrolls kindergartners through eighth graders at its campus in Springfield, Virginia, has been previously embroiled in controversy after its school banned LGBT students and demanded all employees affirm the belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.According to The New York Times, the school’s employment application requires prospective teachers to describe their faith and sign their initials next to a list of beliefs, including Immanuel Christian’s definition of marriage and stances on sexual identity.“I understand that the term ‘marriage’ has only one meaning; the uniting of one man and one woman,” the application reads, detailing that certain “moral misconduct” considered disqualifying includes “heterosexual activity outside of marriage (e.g., premarital sex, cohabitation, extramarital sex), homosexual or lesbian sexual activity, polygamy, transgender identity, any other violation of the unique roles of male and female.”Pence, 62, has had a long history with the school, having taught from 2001 to 2013 while her husband served in Congress. And in December, the second lady decided to return twice a week to the private school as an art teacher. Cynthia Allen said despite the school’s recent controversies, she is more concerned with its future and said she is planning to speak to administrators further about preventing another racist attack. But for now, she said, Amari will not return to school. “Amari is surviving, but this can’t happen again,” she said. “She is terrified, she has not been able to sleep. And she is strong, I can’t imagine if this happened to somebody else.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Barreling toward impeachment proceedings, Pelosi offers Trump her thoughts and prayers

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Trump took to cable news and Twitter on Friday morning as the first week of the impeachment battle came to a close in Washington.

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UPDATE 3-Yemen's Houthis say attacked Saudi border frontline, no immediate Saudi confirmation

Yemen's Houthi movement said on Saturday it had carried out a major attack near the border with the southern Saudi region of Najran and captured many troops and vehicles, but there was no immediate confirmation from Saudi Arabian authorities. The Houthis' military spokesman said in a statement that three "enemy military brigades had fallen" in the attack, which he said was launched 72 hours ago and supported by the group's drone, missile and air defence units.

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FOX NEWS: Chad Pergram: Reds announcer Marty Brennaman – my lifelong connection to baseball – retires after 46 years

Chad Pergram: Reds announcer Marty Brennaman – my lifelong connection to baseball – retires after 46 years



For 46 seasons, Marty Brennaman has been the voice of the Cincinnati Reds. His first year in the booth was the first year I was old enough to remotely pay attention to baseball.

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FOX NEWS: Watters' Words: Impeachment

Watters' Words: Impeachment



Jesse Watters says the Democrats' impeachment push is all about rage and power.

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Mets’ Pete Alonso Breaks Rookie Home-Run Record

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‘You’re a Bad Police Officer’: Official Confronts Deputy at Awards Ceremony

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View 2020 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat / Scat Pack Widebody Photos

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Iran releases photo of Khamenei with Hezbollah chief

Iran has released a "never before seen" photo of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei alongside Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah. The three men are shown in front of what appears to be a door covered by a curtain and surrounded by shelves stacked with books -- decor associated with Khamenei's Tehran office.

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Trump calls out CNN for missing punctuation mark as impeachment looms

An impeachment inquiry is looming, and the revelations in the whistleblower scandal pop up hour by hour, but President Trump took CNN to task on Friday over the use of the word “liddle.”

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Parents plead not guilty to abandoning daughter. Records show they legally changed her age

Parents are accused of abandoning their adopted daughter and moving the rest of the family to Canada.

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Trump Impeachment Is a Market Nothingburger—for Now

(Bloomberg) -- Subscribe to What Goes Up on Apple PodcastsSubscribe to What Goes Up on Pocket CastsSubscribe to What Goes Up on Spotify House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to open a formal impeachment inquiry over President Donald Trump’s attempt to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joseph Biden exploded in the news this week, sending a shudder through America’s political foundation. For investors though, it triggered a simple question: How should I trade this?Natixis Investment Managers Chief Market Strategist Dave Lafferty and Bloomberg reporter Luke Kawa join this week’s “What Goes Up’’ to break it all down.“In the near term, it doesn’t strike me as something tradeable,” said Lafferty. “We don’t know what we don’t know at this point; we don’t know what the revelations will be.” As 2020 approaches, however, “it has a lot of real market implications going into the election.”Lafferty also discusses using game theory to analyze how the impeachment proceedings may affect Trump’s trade war, and how central bank stimulus is having diminishing effects. “Super accommodative policy 10 years on now serves to undermine investor and consumer confidence, more than it does to instill it,” he said.Mentioned in this podcast:  Impeachment Latest Risk for Markets on Edge Over Trade, Growth Trump Whistle-Blower Goes Where Mueller Never CouldTo contact the authors of this story: Sarah Ponczek in New York at sponczek2@bloomberg.netMichael P. Regan in New York at mregan12@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Magnus Henriksson at mhenriksso10@bloomberg.net, David RovellaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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