2 women have been criminally charged over their partners' suicides. Why do men escape the same blame?

Experts told Insider they could not recall a similar instance of a man being charged with manslaughter in connection with his partner's suicide.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2BVkx29
Feed

Police say body of British tourist missing in Cambodia found

The body of a British backpacker missing for more than a week in Cambodia was found at sea Thursday about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the island where she disappeared, officials said. The police chief for Preah Sihanouk province, Maj. Gen. Chuon Narin, said the body of 21-year-old Amelia Bambridge was discovered in the Gulf of Thailand northwest of Koh Rong, where she disappeared after attending a beach party on the night of Oct. 23. It was found near another island, Koh Chhlam, close to Cambodia's maritime border with Thailand.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2BWBfy8
Feed

Five hundred goats save the Ronald Reagan library from wildfires

Animal team charged with eating through 13 acres of scrubland that could have fueled California’s Easy fireGoats are released at the Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley, California, during a similar crisis in 2012. Photograph: Juan Carlo/APDiligent work by a team of 500 goats has helped save the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library from wildfires that are ravaging parts of California.The library deployed the goat squadron during the spring in order to munch their way through around 13 acres of scrubland around the library that could’ve provided tinder-like fuel to a wildfire.This preventive action created a fire break between the library and the Easy fire, which has menaced thousands of homes in the Simi Valley near Los Angeles. More than 1,000 firefighters are tackling the blaze, which caused flames to approach the presidential library from a nearby hillside. Treasures saved include a piece of the Berlin Wall and Air Force One.“We actually worked with the Ventura county fire department in May and they bring out hundreds of goats to our property,” Melissa Giller, a spokeswoman for the library, told ABC. “The goats eat all of the brush around the entire property, creating a fire perimeter.”The goats were sourced from a firm called 805 Goats, which oversees an army of horned contractors, including Vincent van Goat, Selena Goatmez, Goatzart and, more prosaically, Oreo. The company charges fire-threatened clients about $1,000 per acre of goat-cleared land. It plans to expand its herd to cope with a growing wildfire threat in California, fueled by the climate crisis.Goats are growing in popularity as a tool to combat wildfires across the western US, as they are viewed as cheaper and more environmentally friendly than teams of human workers using chemicals. They are also used for general weed clearance in other parts of the country, such as in New York City’s Prospect Park.A heavy dependence upon goats does carry risks, however, as residents of West Boise, Idaho, found out to their cost last year when a herd of more than 100 goats rampaged through the neighborhood. The invaders caused carnage in flowerbeds and lawns before breaking a fence and it took two hours for the goats to be rounded up.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/31ZKM1T
Feed

UPDATE 2-American Airlines flight attendants stand up to Boeing CEO on 737 MAX

American Airlines' flight attendants union still has safety concerns about the Boeing 737 MAX and is demanding an active role in the relaunch of the grounded aircraft, its president told Boeing Co's chief executive in a letter seen by Reuters. "The 28,000 flight attendants working for American Airlines refuse to walk onto a plane that may not be safe and are calling for the highest possible safety standards to avoid another tragedy," Association of Professional Flight Attendants President Lori Bassani said in the letter.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/325qIew
Feed

Pathologist says Epstein's injuries point to murder, not suicide

A forensic pathologist hired by Jeffrey Epstein's brother said Wednesday that evidence suggested the disgraced financier had not died by suicide in his jail cell but had been murdered. "I think that the evidence points toward homicide rather than suicide," Baden, a former New York City medical examiner who was present at the autopsy, told Fox News.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34ija9I
Feed

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

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

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2JCXT2Q
Feed

Fire sweeps Pakistani train, killing 73, after cooking fire

A fire swept through a Pakistani train on Thursday, killing 73 people and injuring nearly 40 after a gas canister that passengers were using to cook breakfast exploded, the minister of railways said. The fire destroyed three of the train's carriages near the town of Rahim Yar Khan in the south of Punjab province. It was the worst disaster on Pakistan's accident-plagued railway system in nearly 15 years.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Wr2n1M
Feed

Israel rearrests Palestinian MP, daughter says

Israeli forces on Thursday rearrested a Palestinian lawmaker who was freed in February after being held without trial for 20 months over links to an outlawed leftist group, her daughter said. "My mother Khalida Jarrar was arrested from our house in Ramallah" at about 3:00 am (0100 GMT), Jarrar's daughter Yafa posted on Facebook. Spokespeople for Israel's Shin Bet security service, which generally directs such arrests, could not immediately be reached for comment.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2qbPXhX
Feed

FREE SPEECH VICTORY: Kentucky Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Christian Print Shop Owner

The Kentucky Supreme Court handed a victory Thursday to Lexington promotional print shop owner Blaine Adamson. 

from CBNNews.com https://ift.tt/2C1XiDG

UPDATE 4-Islamic State vows revenge against U.S. for Baghdadi killing

Islamic State confirmed on Thursday that its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a weekend raid by U.S. special forces in northwestern Syria, and vowed revenge against the United States. The Iraqi rose from obscurity to lead the ultra-hardline group and declare himself "caliph" of all Muslims, holding sway over huge areas of Iraq and Syria from 2014-2017 before Islsmic State's control disintegrated under U.S.-led attacks. The group confirmed his death in an audio tape posted online and said a successor, identified as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, had been appointed.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2N1Dma8
Feed

Reading Scores on National Exam Decline in Half the States

WASHINGTON -- The average eighth grade reading score on a nationally representative test declined among public school students in more than half of the states, according to data released Wednesday by the National Center for Education Statistics, the research arm of the Education Department.The dismal results were part of the release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the "nation's report card." The test assesses a sample of fourth and eighth grade students -- more than 290,000 in each subject in 2019 -- every other year."Over the past decade, there has been no progress in either mathematics or reading performance, and the lowest-performing students are doing worse," Peggy Carr, the associate commissioner of the center, said in a statement.Such findings will inevitably prompt demands for policy change. In a statement, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who is championing a $5 billion school choice program, said that the results "must be America's wake-up call.""We can neither excuse them away, nor simply throw more money at the problem," she said.That vision is in stark contrast to the one that has emerged in the Democratic presidential primary. All the leading candidates have suggested spending billions more federal dollars on traditional public schools, and two of the front-runners -- Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders -- have proposed slowing the growth of the charter school sector.The losses on the national exam were steepest for students who had been struggling the most, a segment that is the focus of many school reform policies.Eighth graders at the bottom 10th percentile of reading achievement lost 6 points on the exam compared with similar students two years ago, while students at the 50th percentile lost 3 points and students at the 90th percentile -- top achievers -- lost only 1 point."Eighth grade is a transitional point in preparing students for success in high school, so it is critical that researchers further explore the declines we are seeing here," Carr said.White, black, Hispanic, Native American and multiracial students all lost ground in eighth grade reading, while there was no significant change for Asian students.Washington, one of 27 cities to participate in a separate analysis of urban school systems, was the only city or state to see significant improvement in eighth grade reading, according to a federal analysis of the data.This year, 31 states noted a drop of 2 to 7 points in their average eighth grade reading score -- which the federal government deemed significant -- compared with their performances in 2017. Indiana, New Hampshire and Virginia were the states with the largest declines among eighth graders.Fourth grade reading scores dropped in 17 states, with New Jersey having the largest decline, 6 points; only one state, Mississippi, improved, the data showed.States' average math scores fared considerably better, particularly among fourth graders. Nine states had significant increases in fourth grade math, compared with 2017 numbers, with Mississippi again leading the pack. The eighth grade score in three states improved, while six noted a decline.While the most recent results are disappointing, trends in student achievement look more positive over the long term. American students have made large gains in math and small gains in reading since 1990, but those improvements began to level out around 2009. There is no consensus among experts as to why.The Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of large urban school systems, said it saw a hopeful story in the new data. Over the past two decades, students in cities have moved closer to national achievement averages in both math and reading."The fact that large city schools have cut their performance gap with the nation in about half is even more remarkable when you consider that our schools have substantially more poor students and English-language learners than the average public school across the nation," the group said in a statement. Such results "suggest that the nation's urban public schools are adding substantially more educational value than the average school."The National Assessment of Educational Progress is considered a "low stakes" exam, because schools and teachers do not lose funding, pay or autonomy based on how their students perform. Some researchers consider the test the gold-standard measure of learning nationwide, while others argue it is unfair to judge schools using an exam that may have little connection to the material teachers cover in the classroom.DeVos said the 2019 scores reflected a "student achievement crisis," where progress had stalled, two out of three children were not proficient readers, and outcomes continued to worsen for the most vulnerable students."Every American family needs to open the nation's report card this year and think about what it means for their child and for our country's future," she said. "The results are, frankly, devastating."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Wtcjb2
Feed

California Governor Accepted Donations from Utility Company He Now Excoriates for ‘Greed’

California governor, Democrat Gavin Newsom, has accepted large donations from Pacific Gas & Electric Co., a utility company he now excoriates for "greed" and "mismanagement."PG&E has faced widespread criticism for implementing blackouts for millions of customers to avoid sparking wildfires in the midst of California's dry and windy fall weather."I have a message for PG&E," Newsom wrote on Twitter on Friday. "Your years and years of greed. Years and years of mismanagement. Years and years of putting shareholders over people. Are OVER."Newsom and allies accepted $208,400 from the utility during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, according to local affiliate ABC10. Of that total, $150,000 went to a political spending group called “Citizens Supporting Gavin Newsom for Governor 2018,” while the rest went to directly to Newsom's campaign.PG&E filed for bankruptcy in January 2019. Faulty PG&E electricity equipment has been blamed for sparking several wildfires in the past decade.California has consistently shut down proposals to clear dead trees from forests and to trim trees near power lines state wide, creating conditions for a rash of wildfire outbreaks in recent years.The Kincaid Fire currently burning in Sonoma County in the northern part of the state has forced the evacuation of roughly 200,000 people. The fire is twice the size of the city of San Fransisco.Newsom declared a state of emergency on Sunday in response to the Kincaid Fire and several other wildfires throughout the state. He again threatened PG&E in a statement on the situation."There is a plan to get out of this. This is not the new normal,” Newsom said on Sunday at an evacuation center in northern California. “This is not a 10-year process to deal with this. That will not be the case… [PG&E] will be held to account to do something radically different

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/36jJC4X
Feed

Full coverage: House passes impeachment resolution

The House on Thursday voted to pass a historic resolution establishing formal procedures for the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump. The 232-196 vote fell almost exclusively along party lines, with two moderate Democrats voting no.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2N5Vf85
Feed

Putin faces Syria money crunch after U.S. keeps control of oil fields

Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing an unwelcome new financial challenge in Syria after the U.S. pullback enabled his ally Bashar Assad to reclaim the biggest chunk of territory in the country still outside his control.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/332gzkj
Feed

Graphic: Examining the weapons and tactics used by police and protesters in Hong Kong

As the showdown between police and protesters in Hong Kong has intensified, officers have used increasing force, deploying an arsenal of crowd-control weapons, including tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, sponge grenades and bean bag rounds. Protesters have also stepped up their actions, hurling petrol bombs, vandalizing mainland Chinese banks and businesses believed to be pro-Beijing, throwing bricks at police stations and battling officers in the streets, sometimes with metal bars. Reuters scrutinized hundreds of images of the protests, as well as dozens of police reports and video footage, and combined this research with reporting on the ground to document the weapons used by the police and protesters, and how the violence has increased from day to day.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2oCxRpc
Feed

G.M. Union Members Return to Work, but Worries Are Far From Over

GM autoworkers returned to work with a new contract after their longest nationwide strike in nearly 50 years. Here's where they stand now.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34rWkNl
Feed

Top NSC Russia official confirms key testimony linking Trump to quid pro quo

President Donald Trump’s top Russia aide on Thursday corroborated aspects of a key U.S. diplomat’s testimony connecting the president to a quid pro quo with Ukraine, according to people familiar with the aide’s testimony to House impeachment investigators. Timothy Morrison, the Europe and Russia chief for the National Security Council, was cited more than a dozen times in William Taylor’s opening statement to investigators last week.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34hfEwr
Feed

Convicted rapist mistakenly released from Georgia prison captured in Kentucky

Tony Maycon Munoz-Mendez was serving a life sentence in Georgia when he was released "in error." Authorities captured him in Kentucky Wednesday.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34mPWqx
Feed

Islamic State group announces successor to al-Baghdadi

The Islamic State group declared a new leader Thursday after it confirmed the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi days earlier in a U.S raid in Syria. In its audio release by the IS central media arm, al-Furqan Foundation, a new spokesman for IS identifies the successor as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi — tracing his lineage, like al-Baghdadi, to the Prophet Muhammad's Quraysh tribe. The speaker in the audio also confirmed the death of Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, a close aide of al-Baghdadi and a spokesman for the group since 2016.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2N0sl94
Feed

Ilhan Omar refuses to back vote recognising Armenian genocide

Ilhan Omar declined to vote in favour of a resolution recognising the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as a genocide, saying any "true acknowledgement" of such crimes must include other historical "mass slaughters".The Minnesota Democrat was one of just three House members to vote “present” on the resolution that passed in an overwhelming 405-11 vote.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/36jWJmB
Feed

How The B-1 Lancer Went From A Nuclear Bomber To an ISIS Killer

Priorities and capabilities change with time.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2PwECE5
Feed

Exclusive: How Lebanon's Hariri defied Hezbollah

After hitting a dead end in efforts to defuse the crisis sweeping Lebanon, Saad al-Hariri informed a top Hezbollah official on Monday he had no choice but to quit as prime minister in defiance of the powerful Shi'ite group. The decision by the Sunni leader shocked Hussein al-Khalil, political advisor to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who advised him against giving in to protesters who wanted to see his coalition government toppled. The meeting described to Reuters by four senior sources from outside Hariri's Future Party captures a critical moment in the crisis that has swept Lebanon for the last two weeks as Hariri yielded to the massive street protests against the ruling elite.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/36cyvdQ
Feed

Donald and Melania Trump place candy on top of child's Minion Halloween costume, video goes viral

Video of the encounter went viral along with a flood of social media commentary. Some accused Trump of playing a Halloween trick at the kid's expense.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2qSZniP
Feed

London's Gatwick airport is testing out new technology to board passengers by individual seat, which could be faster and avoid long lines

The major UK airport is running a two-month trial on some EasyJet flights. It uses screens to call single seat numbers, for maximum efficiency.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2PwXi6E
Feed

Small plane crashes, leaving pilot dead, houses ablaze

A small plane crashed through the roof of a home Tuesday, killing the pilot and causing an explosion that set two houses ablaze in a New Jersey suburb of New York City. No one was in the home that the Cessna 414 crashed into, but flames spread to another house, where a woman escaped injury, Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac said. The plane went down not far from an elementary school at about 11 a.m., according to National Transportation Safety Board investigator Adam Gerhardt.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2JxpPoD
Feed

Beachgoers capture photos of washed up whale, sea turtle along New Jersey beaches

A humpback whale and a sea turtle were found on two New Jersey beaches. The causes of death are unknown, but turtle may have been hit by boat.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2oqisIj
Feed

Trump impeachment: Official says she was repeatedly urged to oust Ukraine ambassador by Republican lobbyist

A US government official has reportedly told politicians leading the impeachment hearings against Donald Trump that she was urged by a Republican-linked lobbyist to remove the US ambassador to Ukraine from her post, as the president's allies launched a smear campaign against her.Catherine Croft, a Ukraine expert who worked at the US State Department, said she was repeatedly contacted by lobbyist Robert Livingston about ousting Marie Yovanovitch, according to prepared remarks obtained by NPR.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Wzjqig
Feed

Biden's communion denial highlights faith-politics conflict

A Roman Catholic priest's denial of communion to Joe Biden in South Carolina on Sunday illustrates the fine line presidential candidates must walk as they talk about their faiths: balancing religious values with a campaign that asks them to choose a side in polarizing moral debates. The awkward moment for Biden came during a weekend campaign swing through South Carolina, a pivotal firewall in his hopes to claim the Democratic presidential nomination. The former vice president on Sunday visited St. Anthony Catholic Church in Florence, a midsize city in the state's largely rural northeast.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2MUhmOq
Feed

US helicopter raid reported in Syria after trove of Baghdadi intelligence taken

The US is believed to have carried out fresh raids on suspected senior Islamic State members in Syria overnight, as officials assessed a treasure trove of intelligence gathered from Isil leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s final hideout. Helicopters reported to be from the US-led coalition flew late on Monday night into al-Shuyukh village south of Jarablus, around three miles from a raid the previous day that killed Isil’s spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir. Donald Trump, the US president, tweeted on Tuesday that Baghdadi's "number one replacement" had been killed. He did not name who that was, but it is thought he was referring to Muhajir. Analysts do not agree that Muhajir would have been Baghdadi's natural successor.  Just confirmed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s number one replacement has been terminated by American troops. Most likely would have taken the top spot - Now he is also Dead!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2019 A spokesman for the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is believed to have jointly conducted the mission, said there had been a “successful raid targeting and arresting senior Isil members” on Monday night without elaborating. Local sources reported that the mission lasted no more than 20 minutes and no clashes were heard. “An Iraqi family had moved there in recent times,” Aghiad al-Kheder, co-founder of anti-Isil activist group Sound and Picture, told the Telegraph. “We think two men were taken away by the helicopters.” The men’s identity, or relationship to Baghdadi, was not immediately known. “We think it's related to the Baghdadi raid,” said Mr Kheder, whose group has sources on the ground in the area. ”For sure US found important documents and maybe in the next few days we will see many operations like this.” Pentagon officials told the Washington Post that the documents and other information gathered during the raid on the compound in Barisha in Idlib province close to the Turkish border would prove useful in hunting down remaining senior Isil figures. The officials said two men were also captured alive in the raid who they hoped could provide intelligence about the group. Evidence was growing that Isil had an established smuggling ring, taking senior members from Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria and Qaim in western Iraqi to Idlib. The last moments of Islamic State leader Kurdish spies cultivated a source inside Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s inner circle who was able to steal the Islamic State leader’s underwear for DNA sampling and provide a detailed layout of his compound ahead of the US raid, the SDF commander said.  Mazloum Kobani Abdi, the head of the SDF, told NBC his intelligence officers had turned one of Baghdadi’s security advisors who was able to give critical information about the jihadist leader’s house and the tunnels beneath it.  The source took a pair of Baghdadi’s underwear and a blood sample to help US forces confirm who was hiding in the compound. The source was at the site on the night of the raid and was whisked out by US commandos. Polat Can, a senior adviser to the SDF, revealed more detailed information about the group's role in finding Baghdadi.  "Since 15 May, we have been working together with the CIA,” said Polat Can, a senior adviser to the SDF. He said their surveillance tracked the 48-year-old reclusive leader moving to the village of Barisha in northern Idlib from northern Deir Ezzor in April. Iraqi officials confirmed to the Telegraph that they had arrested members of Baghdadi’s inner circle who were part of the ring and gave up the leader’s location. It is thought fighters with the Islamist group Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda-aligned group which is usually hostile to Isil, were also facilitating senior Isil leaders’ movement through rebel-held Idlib. Baghdadi was discovered at the house of one Hurras al-Din commander, Abu Mohamed al-Halabi, who was killed in the raid. Mustafa Bali, SDF’s spokesman, said that Muhajir, described as Baghdadi’s right-hand man, was believed to have been in the area in order to facilitate Baghdadi’s movements in Idlib and possibly on to Turkey. Muhajir was targeted in the village of Ain al-Baydah near Turkish-administered Jarablus with the help of SDF intelligence. Local sources said Muhajir had been travelling in a convoy made up of an oil tanker and a car. The SDF has questioned how Ankara was not aware of the presence of Baghdadi and other senior leaders so close to areas in Syria under its control.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/36gZYv9
Feed

Man loses foot, another seriously injured in shark attack while snorkeling in Australia

The shark attack occurred in Hook Passage in the Whitsunday Islands off Australia's Queensland coast, rescuers say.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2BQYklJ
Feed

Michelle Obama says white Americans 'still running' from black neighbors

Former first lady reflects on her experience of white flight in Chicago and says ‘when we moved in, white families moved out’Michelle Obama said: ‘I want to remind white folks that y’all were running from us. And you’re still running.’ Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty ImagesMichelle Obama has said that white Americans are “still running” from their non-white fellow citizens during a summit in which she detailed how her own experience of white flight unfolded during her upbringing on Chicago’s South Side.“We were doing everything we were supposed to do – and better,” the former first lady told attendees at the third annual Obama Foundation Summit, reported the Chicago Sun-Times as she talked about her childhood. “But when we moved in, white families moved out.”“I want to remind white folks that y’all were running from us. And you’re still running,” she also said, reportedly making a comparison between white flight and what immigrant families experience when they settle in US neighborhoods.At the meeting, Michelle Obama reportedly touted the benefits of building the Obama Presidential Center on 19.3 acres in historic Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side. She said the project would feature a museum, library, gym, and forum.“Barack and I wouldn’t bring some crap up in our neighborhood,” she reportedly said. She pointed out that she hails from the area by birth and that her husband Barack comes from South Side by choice.During his speech at the forum, Barack Obama said: “We joke about it a little bit, like this is the mothership.”While they hope the center could anchor a potential economic revival in the area, there have been setbacks.Opponents of the project are pursuing a federal court appeal after losing a lawsuit. Federal authorities must also review the project, as Jackson Park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In December, this review will have already spanned two years. It remains unclear when the review will end, according to the newspaper.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Wq05je
Feed

NSC official's testimony appears to contradict Rick Perry Ukraine claims

Testimony from a senior White House official on Tuesday appeared to contradict Energy Secretary Rick Perry's ardent denials that he ever heard former Vice President Joe Biden or his son Hunter discussed in relation to U.S. requests that Ukraine investigate corruption. In his opening statement, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official overseeing Ukraine policy, told House impeachment investigators that he objected to EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland's comments in a July 10 White House briefing — attended by Perry — requesting that Ukrainian officials investigate the 2016 U.S. election, the Bidens and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma that had employed Hunter Biden.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2NlvvmV
Feed

Disaster for Trump? What If the Philippines Became Russia's Ally?

How could that happen?

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/333x4fJ
Feed

California governor accepted donations from company he now excoriates for 'greed'

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has accepted large donations from Pacific Gas & Electric Co., a utility company he now excoriates for “greed” and “mismanagement.” PG&E has faced widespread criticism for implementing blackouts for millions of customers to avoid sparking wildfires in the midst of California’s dry and windy fall weather.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2WpDJ1x
Feed

Australian sentenced to 36 years for murder, rape of Israeli

An Australian judge sentenced a man to 36 years in prison on Tuesday for the murder and rape of an Israeli student whom he bludgeoned into unconsciousness moments after she stepped off a tram in Melbourne before setting her corpse on fire. Victoria state Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth ordered Codey Herrmann, 21, to serve at least 30 years behind bars for his crimes against 21-year-old Aiia Maasarwe last January. The judge said she would have sentenced Herrmann to 40 years in prison with 35 years to be served before he became eligible for parole if he had not pleaded guilty in the face of an overwhelming prosecution case.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2JwY2ET
Feed

The Kincade Fire in California has burned an area more than twice the size of San Francisco. Here are the latest updates.

The Kincade Fire in California's Sonoma County has burned 76,825 acres. PG&E; told regulators that a broken jumper cable may have started the blaze.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/31PZybn
Feed

The Royal Navy May Not Be the Most Dangerous, But It Can Kill Billions

One reason: nuclear weapons.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/36jsegH
Feed

Trump Sides With Indicted Oligarch Over His Own Diplomat

Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump boosted a tweet Monday promoting a controversial allegation from an indicted Ukrainian oligarch: that a top U.S. diplomat put fabricated information about the mogul in a diplomatic cable. That diplomat happens to be one of Democrats’ key impeachment witnesses. And that oligarch happens to have a long-standing beef with Joe Biden.Scott Adams, a Washington, D.C., talk radio host, sent out a tweet Monday night about U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, who delivered some of the impeachment inquiry’s most damaging testimony yet. The tweet alleged that Taylor lied about Ukrainian natural gas baron Dmytro Firtash in a cable to State Department headquarters in 2008. At issue was a conversation Taylor had with Firtash in Kyiv that December. Taylor wrote in a diplomatic cable (later published by WikiLeaks) that Firtash told him he had “acknowledged ties to Russian organized crime figure [Semion] Seymon Mogilevich,” one of the most notorious accused mobsters on the planet. According to Taylor, Firtash said “he needed Mogilevich's approval to get into business in the first place,” but had not committed any crimes in the course of his business.When WikiLeaks published the cable in 2010, Firtash issued a statement on his website disputing its contents. Firtash, the statement claimed,“has never stated, to anyone, at any time, that he needed or received permission from Mr. Mogilevich to establish any of his businesses.”Earlier this year, Firtash reiterated that defense. Without mentioning any American official by name, he said someone must have fabricated the detail about Mogilevich. Taylor, meanwhile, has defended the State Department’s notes. The Justice Department appears to side with Taylor; its lawyers have argued in court that Firtash has ties to Russian organized crime. The criminal charges he faces, however, don’t involve any such alleged relationships. Instead, the Justice Department charged him in 2014 with helming a conspiracy to bribe Indian government officials. Trump’s retweet, however, offers a presidential thumbs-up to Firtash’s side of the story, and raises a new line of attack on Taylor’s credibility for the president’s allies.  Asked about his sourcing for the allegations against Taylor, Adams told The Daily Beast, “My sources are solid Foggy Bottom people.” He also noted the explanation for the cable that Firtash provided to The Daily Beast earlier this year.This specific defense of Firtash took hold in The Hill over the summer, when columnist John Solomon, whose articles informed Rudy Giuliani’s Biden-Ukraine investigation, published a piece in July claiming that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s deputy said Firtash’s criminal charges in the U.S. might “go away” if he shared damaging information about Trump with Mueller’s team. Solomon cited “multiple sources with direct knowledge” and contemporaneous memos. Firtash and Solomon share the same lawyers: Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova. The husband-wife team are veterans of the conservative movement’s most contentious legal battles, with longstanding ties in the Justice Department and Trump administration. Ukrainian Oligarch Seethed About ‘Overlord’ Biden for YearsRead 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.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/31TLMVv
Feed

The Latest: 12 migrants found alive in Belgian truck

Belgian police say they have discovered 12 migrants — 11 Syrians and one Sudanese — hiding among fruit and vegetables in a refrigerated truck. While such discoveries by police are fairly common, the danger to stowaways was highlighted last week by the discovery in Britain of the bodies of 39 people inside a refrigerated haulage container in southeastern England. Ocean Viking arrived in Pozzallo on Wednesday morning, 12 days after it rescued 104 migrants from a rubber dinghy off Libya.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ozwiZ6
Feed

Frustration mounts as California is hit with more blackouts

Frustration and anger mounted across Northern California as the state's biggest utility began another round of fire-prevention blackouts Tuesday that could leave millions of people without electricity, some for five days or longer. The shut-offs, aimed at keeping windblown electrical equipment from sparking wildfires, came as fire crews raced to contain two major blazes in Northern and Southern California before the winds picked up dangerously again. The fires have destroyed dozens of homes in Sonoma County wine country and in the hills of Los Angeles.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34bvPeS
Feed

Tucker Carlson and Guest Blame Diversity and ‘Woke’ Culture for California Fires

Fox NewsFox News host Tucker Carlson and his guest, conservative YouTube personality Dave Rubin, both insisted Tuesday night that the wildfires burning across California are due largely to progressive ideology, “woke” culture, and diversity in hiring.During Tuesday’s broadcast of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson welcomed on Rubin, a political commentator and podcaster, to discuss the issues surrounding the large fires engulfing the state, including those related to the electrical grid and firefighting methods.“PG&E; strikes me as almost a metaphor for the destruction of the state,” Carlson said about the state’s power company. “Here’s the utility which doesn’t really know anything about its own infrastructure but knows everything about the race of its employees. How did we get there?”After noting that he lives near one of the fires in the Los Angeles area, Rubin immediately took aim at liberal politics as the main reason the wildfires have grown so large and dangerous.“The problem right now is that everything, EVERYTHING, from academia to public utilities to politics, everything that goes woke, that buys into this ridiculous progressive ideology that cares about what contractors are LGBT or how many black firemen we have or white this or Asian that, everything that goes that road eventually breaks down,” he declared.As Carlson nodded and said “that’s true,” Rubin continued, complaining that this isn’t how “freedom is supposed to operate.”“What is supposed to happen—imagine if your house was on fire,” he added. “Would you care what the public utility or what the fire company, what contractor they brought in, what gender or sexuality or any of those things he or she was? It’s just absolutely ridiculous.”The Fox News host continued to agree with Rubin, who went on to tie PG&E;’s preemptive blackouts to a lack of “libertarian or conservative-minded people in California to fight what the progressives are doing to the state.”“If you can’t keep the lights on and you can’t keep the place from burning down, you’ve reached the point where there is no kind of lying about it anymore,” Carlson concluded. “It’s falling apart. It’s a disaster. It’s not civilized anymore.”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.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2JuPWMT
Feed

US House overwhelmingly votes to recognize Armenian genocide

Resolution comes at delicate time in US-Turkey relationship, shortly after House votes to impose sanctionsPeople take part in a torchlight procession as they mark the 104th anniversary of the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman forces, Yerevan, Armenia. Photograph: Karen Minasyan/AFP/Getty ImagesThe US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to recognize the Armenian genocide of a century ago, stepping into a fraught historical debate at a particularly tense moment for the US-Turkey relationship.The House voted 405-11 in favor of the resolution, which is not legally binding, to formally recognize the systematic killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in 1915, modern-day Turkey, as a “genocide”.Earlier on Tuesday, the House voted 403 to 16 to impose sanctions on Turkey, in a striking rebuke of Donald Trump after he pulled American forces from northern Syria following a phone call with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, paving the way for Turkey’s assault on Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria.The Turkish government has long denied the term genocide to describe the slaughter and has waged a lobbying campaign in the US and around the world to discourage the use of that word in reference to the killings.Many countries and nearly all US states officially recognize the killings as genocide. But the US Congress has resisted pressure in recent years by activists out of a desire not to inflame tensions with a Nato ally. Support for a resolution grew, particularly among Democrats, after Trump enabled the Turkish offensive against the Kurdish groups.The US had previously allied with Syrian Kurdish forces against militants of the Islamic State group. The Turkish offensive left scores of Kurdish fighters and civilians dead and displaced hundreds of thousands more.“If we ignore history, then we are destined to witness the mistakes of the past be repeated,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said, urging support for the resolution on Tuesday. “Recent attacks by the Turkish military against the Kurdish people are a stark reminder of the danger in our own time.”The California Democrat Adam Schiff, a sponsor of the resolution, said in a statement: “The House declared that it will no longer be party to the cause of genocide denial. This is a vote I have fought for 19 years to make possible, and one that tens of thousands of my Armenian American constituents have worked, struggled, and prayed for decades to see.”The vote on the bipartisan resolution came on the heels of House passage of economic sanctions against Turkey.There is a bipartisan resolution in the Senate but it is unclear if the chamber will bring the measure to the floor.In a statement, the Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, condemned the move, which he called “a meaningless political step” and an “attempt to rewrite history”.“The US Administration and politicians as well as the American people are best placed to consider the damages this resolution seeking to disrupt Turkey-US ties does and will inflict upon the US interests at an extremely fragile time in terms of the international and regional security,” the statement said, adding: “Undoubtedly, this resolution will negatively affect the image of the US before the public opinion of Turkey as it also brings the dignity of the US House of Representatives into disrepute.”But on Capitol Hill, the resolution’s passage was celebrated. California congresswoman Anna Eshoo, who is Armenian American, said she had been “waiting for this moment” since she was first elected to Congress more than a quarter-century ago. “This resolution not only honors and commemorates my ancestors who perished but all those who were lost in the first genocide of the 20th century,” she said.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2PBaU0N
Feed

A California couple who was forced to evacuate their home and winery share what it's really like to endure the wildfires engulfing the state

California's Sonoma wine country dealt with destructive wildfires in 2017. Here's how one winery is dealing with 2019's Kincade Fire.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2BUhQ0N
Feed

Michelle Obama: White Americans 'still running' from black neighbors

Michelle Obama said that white Americans are “still running” from their nonwhite fellow citizens during a summit in which she detailed how her own experience of white flight unfolded during her upbringing on Chicago’s South Side.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2osJoqS
Feed

John Bolton: Former national security adviser 'summoned to testify in Trump impeachment probe'

House impeachment investigators have invited John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Donald Trump, to testify before Congress next week, according to reports.Mr Bolton was reportedly called on by House investigators to give evidence for their impeachment inquiry into Mr Trump surrounding the president’s dealings with Ukraine.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2N4hMSF
Feed

Trump falsely says Chicago is more dangerous than Afghanistan, which topped the list of the world's 10 most dangerous countries in 2019

The latest Global Peace Index has a new least peaceful country, assessed on metrics like political instability and deaths from conflict.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2NqtDJB
Feed

This timeline shows exactly what happened on board the Lion Air Boeing 737 Max that crashed in less than 13 minutes, killing 189 people

Documents released by Indonesia in late October have given a definitive picture of what happened on board the plane as it entered its fatal descent.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2pfaVNa
Feed

Trump shows off 'wonderful' dog used in al-Baghdadi raid

The president declassified a picture of the Belgian Malinois that helped the U.S. military track down the ISIS leader.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/36aoIVI
Feed

Kuwait's ruler opens parliament after medical treatment

Kuwait's 90-year-old ruler opened the country's parliament on Tuesday with a call to fellow Gulf Arab states to end a row that has shattered regional unity, in his first public address since being hospitalized last month in the United States. Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who has ruled the OPEC oil producer since 2006, has been trying to mediate in the dispute that has seen Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain impose a boycott of Qatar since mid-2017. "It is neither acceptable nor tolerable for the dispute between our brothers in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council to continue," he said, standing to address lawmakers from a podium in a speech at the annual opening of Kuwait's National Assembly.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2plK9m8
Feed

Daylight saving time is ending this weekend. These states want to make DST permanent

Adjust your clocks back one hour Nov. 3 at 2 a.m. — lest you wake up an hour early to everything in the days ahead. But some states might change that.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/32UQELm
Feed

China Is Finishing Its First Large Helicopter Assault Ship

What will that mean for America?

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2JsmwiH
Feed