Romney speculates Turkey called Trump's bluff: 'Are we so weak and inept?'

In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, blasted President Trump's decision to pull troops from defensive positions in Syria, and brought up the possibility that “Turkey may have called America's bluff” in an exchange between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Are we so weak and inept diplomatically that Turkey forced the hand of the United States of America? Turkey?” Romney said.

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  Bluff City Law: Can I Help You?

  Internet Video Archive
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  NBC Passes on More ‘Bluff City Law': Jimmy Smits Drama Will End After Initial 10-Episode Run

  The Wrap

2020 Vision: Hillary Clinton thinks Russia will back Tulsi Gabbard to help Trump stay in power

Reminder: There are 108 days until the Iowa caucuses and 382 days until the 2020 presidential election. 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said this week that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, is likely being groomed by Moscow as a third-party candidate for the 2020 race. In an interview on the podcast of former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, Clinton expressed her concerns about possible Russian interference in 2020.

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  Van Jones: Hillary Clinton Is Playing A 'Dangerous Game' With Tulsi Gabbard Remarks

  HuffPost
• Gabbard Responds to Hillary’s Russia Attacks, Challenges Her to Join Dem Primary

  National Review

France says foiled September 11-inspired attack

France's interior minister said on Thursday that intelligence services had arrested a man for planning an attack inspired by plane attacks on the World Trade Center in New York in Sept. 2001. France has for several years grappled with how to respond to both homegrown jihadists and foreign militants following a series of attacks across the country. "Just before (that attack) there was a 60th attempted attack since 2013," Christophe Castaner told France 2 television.

'Powderkeg' in Germany amid Turks-Kurds conflict

Syrian Kurd Mohamed Zidik, 76, still buys his bread and baklavas from Turkish neighbours in Berlin, but he knows better than to expound on his views about Ankara's offensive in his hometown. Since Turkish forces launched their assault on Kurds in northeastern Syria, tensions have risen in Germany where millions of Turks and Kurds live side by side. Shops have been trashed, knife attacks reported and insults traded, prompting Germany's integration commissioner Annette Widmann-Mauz to call for restraint.

Archaeologists discover hidden city in the jungle

For centuries, the ancient city of Mahendraparvata has been buried under a dense canopy in the Cambodian jungle. It was one of the first capitals of the Khmer Empire, which controlled large swaths of Southeast Asia from the 9th to 15th centuries. Over the last 150 years, archaeologists have uncovered artifacts that they suspected came from Mahendraparvata, but they didn't have enough evidence to support the link — until now.

The Latest: Service canceled for Texas woman shot by police

The Latest on funeral services for Atatiana Jefferson (all times local): 10 a.m. A service for a woman shot in her home by a Fort Worth police officer has been canceled. Saturday's service for Atatiana Jefferson was to be held at Potter's House Church in Dallas.

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  Remembering Atatiana Jefferson, Brexit talks, Emmett Till memorial: 5 things to know this weekend

  USA TODAY
• 
  Kings' Harrison Barnes generously pays for Atatiana Jefferson's funeral

  NBC Sports BayArea

Could France and Germany Jointly Build an EU Aircraft Carrier?

While discussing France and Germany's joint development with France of the FCAS sixth-generation stealth fighter in March 2019, the new head of Germany's governing CDU party Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer raised eyebrows with her suggestion of a chaser. As a next step, we could start the symbolic project of building an aircraft carrier to give shape to the role of the European Union as a global force for security and peace. German chancellor Angela Merkel endorsed the idea a few days later.

New ICE Program Exposes Hundreds of Fraudulent ‘Family Units’ Trying to Cross The Border

U.S. immigration authorities have discovered hundreds of instances at the border of “family unit fraud,” or unrelated individuals posing as families, over the last six months thanks to a new investigative initiative. Authorities exposed 238 fraudulent families presenting 329 false documents, according to the results of an investigation run by Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations unit in El Paso, Texas, the results of which were announced Thursday. More than 350 of those individuals are facing federal prosecution for crimes including human smuggling, making false statements, conspiracy, and illegal re-entry after removal.

Trump actions look 'clearly' impeachable, says leading conservative legal figure

Jack Goldsmith, a former top Justice Department lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, thinks that President Trump deserves to be impeached, but the conservative legal scholar is also critical of how the Democrats are going about the process. President Trump's actions in the Ukraine scandal appear to be “clearly” impeachable and are “probably the 300th thing Trump has done that's an impeachable offense,” Goldsmith told Yahoo News in an interview on the “Long Game” podcast. “In the general scheme of things, what Schiff did doesn't even compare to what the president did,” Goldsmith said.

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  Pentagon expert may reveal key details in Ukraine probe

  Yahoo News Video
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  Christopher Bedford on whether House Democrats' impeachment inquiry is backfiring

  FOX News Videos

Joe Biden digs at Elizabeth Warren after debate: Polls don't show 'anybody else as a frontrunner'

Former Vice President Joe Biden dodged some of the piling on from other 2020 candidates he has seen in previous Democratic debates, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren took on a lot of that heat on Tuesday. Biden thinks that's a good thing, but questioned Warren's standing as a frontrunner in comments to reporters in Ohio on Wednesday. "Well, it's kind of about time other people get questioned," he said.

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  Can Warren win the nomination without majority black support?

  Politico
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  What Matters This Week in the 2020 Race

  The Wall Street Journal

Prince William and wife Kate leave Pakistan, day after aborted flight

Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate left Pakistan on Friday after visiting an army dog training school, a day after a severe thunderstorm forced them to change their schedule and stay the night in Lahore. A planned visit to a Pakistani military post in the Khyber region on Friday morning was cancelled because of the change in their schedule, but the prince said learning about the security situation in the country was an objective of the visit. "What happens here in Pakistan directly correlates to what happens on the streets of the UK," William told British media after he and Kate saw dogs that are trained to sniff out explosives.

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  Kate Middleton gives first TV interview since becoming a royal

  Yahoo TV
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  5 of Kate Middleton's Most Controversial Outfits, Ranked

  Who What Wear

Protest Leaders Ignore Ban, Call for March: Hong Kong Update

Hong Kong protest organizers said they would lead demonstrators through Kowloon on Sunday in a march despite losing an appeal against a police ban on the procession. The Appeal Board on Public Meetings and Processions supported the police's refusal to approve the march because of the potential for violence, Radio Television Hong Kong reported. The rally was originally called to protest a government ban on masks and comes after Wednesday's attack on Civil Human Rights Front's organizer Jimmy Sham by hammer-wielding thugs in Mong Kok.

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  Murderer who triggered Hong Kong protests will go to Taiwan: pastor

  AFP
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  Are people still visiting Hong Kong?

  Associated Press Videos

Mayor Pete Buttigieg Drops Fundraiser Tied to Laquan McDonald Coverup

Mayor Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign announced Friday that the co-host of a controversial campaign fundraiser was dropping out amid sharp public criticism over the role he played in delaying the release of a video of an infamous 2014 shooting death of a black teenage boy. The would-be co-host, Steve Patton, is a former Chicago city attorney who pushed to withhold video depicting the death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald until after a contentious mayoral runoff election, more than a year after a judge had ordered the video to be released. “Transparency and justice for Laquan McDonald is more important than a campaign contribution,” Chris Meagher, the Buttigieg campaign's national press secretary, told The Daily Beast.

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  Castro blindsides Buttigieg over Chicago donation

  Politico
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  BLM Activist Scolds Buttigieg for Accepting Donations from Attorney Who Delayed Release of Laquan McDonald Tape

  National Review

Clever-Approved Travel Gear That Looks Good and Works Even Better

Travel in style, no matter how you're getting there Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

High-profile cases turn spotlight on domestic violence in Russia

Natalia Tunikova's partner pushed her towards the open balcony in their high-rise Moscow flat, before punching her to the floor. Cases like Tunikova's are ever more widely reported in Russia, leading to a public outcry in a country that has no specific law on domestic violence and where feminist movements like #MeToo had little impact. This summer, a case against three teenage sisters who killed their father after what lawyers say was years of beatings and sexual abuse made national and global headlines.

Why Did 3 U.S. Navy Submarines Surface In The Pacific In 2010? China.

Nuclear powers rarely go to war with each other, but that doesn't mean they don't threaten to do so. Long-range heavy bombers are some of the best forces for crisis stability, Morgan wrote in a 2013 study for the U.S. Air Force. On the other hand, the U.S. Navy's submarine-launched cruise missiles are less effective — even counterproductive — for crisis stability … because they're invisible most of the time.

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  China's Nightmare: What Would Happen If America Wanted To Sell Nuclear Submarines?

  The National Interest
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  Russia's Amazing Mike-Class Submarine Broke World Records (And Paid The Ultimate Price)

  The National Interest

The Latest: GM workers to begin contract voting on Saturday

The 49,000 General Motors workers who have been on the picket line since Sept. 16 will begin voting on a tentative four-year contract on Saturday. Factory-level officials from the United Auto Workers union voted to recommend the agreement to members at a daylong meeting in Detroit Thursday. On Wednesday, the company and the UAW reached a deal that would give workers a mix of pay raises, lump sum payments and an $11,000 signing bonus.

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  UAW says GM strike to continue until workers vote on deal

  AFP
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  GM adds labor costs with new UAW deal, but it's a much healthier company today

  Autoblog

The Navy Wants to Push Out Problem SEALs. But Trump May Get in the Way.

Spiking drinks with cocaine, shooting Iraqi civilians, strangling a Green Beret: The Navy SEAL teams have been rocked by one high-profile scandal after another in recent months, and the leader of the elite commando force, Rear Adm. Collin P. Green, has vowed to clean house. Green has come down hard on misconduct, fired two key leaders and made an unusually public admission that the Navy's secretive warrior caste has an “ethics problem.” At the same time, though, he has steered wide of the SEAL at the center of one of the grimmest episodes, Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, who was charged with shooting civilians, murdering a captive Islamic State fighter with a knife, and threatening to kill witnesses. Gallagher was acquitted of murder charges this summer, but evidence that he had engaged in a range of other misconduct, including theft and drug use, had come to light during the investigation.

Next-Gen Dodge Challenger Coming in 2023? Don't Be So Sure, Says Dodge

Muscle Cars and Trucks noticed a 2023-mile odometer reading in press photos of the 2020 Dodge Challenger, which they and others thought could signal that the next generation's release is in 2023. Dodge is a frequent user of teasers to reveal upcoming cars, but a Dodge spokesperson told C/D this is not that. The automaker also reportedly has a track-focused ACR variant of the Challenger in the works.

Erdogan says Turkey to resume Syria offensive if truce deal falters

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday Turkey would press on with its offensive into northeastern Syria and "crush the heads of terrorists" if a deal with Washington on the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters from the area was not fully implemented. Erdogan agreed on Thursday in talks with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence a five-day pause in the offensive to allow time for the Kurdish fighters to withdraw from a "safe zone" Turkey aims to establish in northeast Syria near the Turkish border. In the last 36 hours, there have been 14 "provocative attacks" from Syria, Turkey's defense ministry said, adding it was continuing to coordinate closely with Washington on implementation of the accord.

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  Trump’s Capitulation to Erdogan Is Complete

  Bloomberg
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  Shelling heard around Syrian town after Turkish-U.S. ceasefire deal

  Reuters Videos

Moms Demand Action founder says advocacy group is not anti-gun

Moms Demand Action is a grassroots organization advocating for stronger gun control measures, founded as a Facebook group the day after the that took the lives of 26 people, 20 of whom were young children. But while its members advocate for an assault ban, Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts says that it's a "misnomer" to call the group anti-gun. "Often people think that because we're doing this work, we're anti-gun or we don't support the Second Amendment.

Elijah Cummings to lie in state at the Capitol next week

WASHINGTON – Rep. Elijah Cummins will lie in state next Thursday in Statuary Hall after dying Thursday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Friday. The Capitol Hill giant died at age 68 following "complications concerning longstanding health challenges." A formal memorial service will be held for Cummings, who represented Maryland in the House of Representatives since 1996, for members of Congress, family and special guests.

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  The late Elijah Cummings, a key player in the Trump impeachment inquiry, was signing subpoenas from his hospital bed

  Business Insider
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  'Everybody's crushed': Baltimore mourns the death of Rep. Elijah Cummings

  USA TODAY

Atatiana Jefferson's death highlights a long history of police violence in Fort Worth, and the community says it's time for a 'reckoning'

Atatiana Jefferson, 28, was shot and killed by Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean early Saturday morning. Five fatal police shootings have taken place in Fort Worth since June, before Jefferson's death. S. Lee Merritt, a civil rights lawyer who is representing Jefferson's family told The New York Times that there "needs to be a reckoning" to change the police culture in Fort Worth.

• Kings' Barnes, Eagles' Jackson to pay for shooting victim's funeral

  Reuters
• 
  Let's talk about what we'd be talking about if Julian Castro was white

  The Independent