- NewsYahoo News
As Supreme Court weighs DACA, Trump pushes fiction about 'hardened criminals'
As the Supreme Court considers whether it is legal for the Trump administration to cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, the president and his allies have begun spinning a familiar — and false — narrative about the program's nearly 700,000 beneficiaries. Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from 'angels,'” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning, hours before the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear opening arguments in the DACA case. Some are very tough, hardened criminals.
- NewsAssociated Press
Suspect in ‘Potomac River Rapist’ cold case arrested
Genealogy websites and a cheek swab enabled U.S. Marshals to arrest a man suspected of being the “Potomac River Rapist,” who terrorized the nation's capital in the 1990s. News outlets report 60-year-old Giles Daniel Warrick is now awaiting extradition from Horry County, South Carolina. Authorities said DNA evidence matched family profiles in genealogy services, enabling investigators to narrow their search after interviewing Warrick's relatives.
- WorldReuters
South Korean, Chinese students face off over Hong Kong protests
Kim Ji-mun, a 23-year-old South Korean university student, had just put up a banner on campus with his friends in support of Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests when a group of Chinese students tried to take it down. The encounter at Hanyang University in Seoul led to a seven-hour confrontation, he said, with the Koreans trying to protect their hand-written poster bearing the message "We join the democracy movement in Hong Kong", and the other side jeering, throwing things and chanting "One China". Kim said the Chinese students mocked the South Koreans in the Wednesday altercation, suggesting they had been paid to back Hong Kong, and making that point by throwing coins at them.
- NewsUSA TODAY
Man caught at Houston airport with 35 pounds of liquid cocaine in shampoo bottles
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston caught an airline passenger trying to smuggle 35 pounds of liquid cocaine in shampoo bottles into the country earlier this week, the agency said in a press release. The CBP said officers discovered the bottles containing cocaine valued at more than $400,000 in the checked luggage of a 26-year-old Colombian citizen Monday after observing him at baggage claim and conducting a bag search. “Our officers are the first line of defense at our ports of entry, so they are trained in the various smuggling methods people use to bring illicit goods into the U.S.,” CBP Port Director Shawn Polley said in the press release.
- NewsINSIDER
An expert in fraternity hazing deaths says coddling parents are part of the problem
Five young men have died in incidents that appear to be connected to fraternities at colleges across the country so far this fall. Hank Nuwer, a journalist who has been compiling a database on fraternity deaths for decades, believes over-indulgent parents are partly to blame for a recent uptick in dangerous behavior. "Parents want to show their love by giving everything — everything but old-fashioned lessons in self-restraint," he told Insider.
- PoliticsBloomberg
DNC Announces 10 Candidates in Atlanta Democratic Debate
The Democratic National Committee on Thursday announced the 10 candidates who will participate in the fifth Democratic primary debate in Atlanta on Wednesday. They are: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang. Julian Castro, who participated in previous debates, most recently in October at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, didn't make the cut.
- WorldThe National Interest
Japan Wants Missile Defenses to Protect the 2020 Olympics (From North Korea)
Japan's Defense Ministry is considering whether to deploy U.S-made Patriot missile defense interceptors to protect the games. To ensure the security of Tokyo, where the Summer Games will open on July 24, the ministry wants to equip the 1st Air Defense Missile Group with PAC-3 MSE interceptors to defend against possible threats such as ballistic missiles, drones and unidentified aircraft,” according to Kyodo News. The deployment of the improved ground-based batteries by units responsible for defending the capital's airspace is planned between April and July, earlier than in other parts of Japan.
- LifestylePopular Mechanics
20 Great Gifts for Boys Who Love to Tinker
These toys will do what your junior high chem teacher never could: make learning about science fun. From Popular Mechanics
- PoliticsPolitico
Jackie Speier erupts at reporter for The Hill
Angered by the testimony of ousted ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, California Rep. Jackie Speier upbraided a reporter for The Hill and ripped the outlet's publication of columns by John Solomon, the conservative journalist whose work is at the center of what Yovanovitch described as a “smear campaign” against her. “I just find it reprehensible that any newspaper would just be willing to put that kind of crap out that is not — has no veracity whatsoever, and not check to see if it had any veracity,” said Speier, a Democrat serving in her seventh term in the House, according to audio of the exchange reviewed by POLITICO. Speier launched into her critique of The Hill after fielding a question from its senior staff writer Scott Wong about who her dream witness would be at the impeachment proceedings.
- PoliticsYahoo News
'You embarrassed yourself': Kellyanne Conway blasts CNN's Wolf Blitzer for playing George Conway clip
Appearing live on CNN Thursday, Kellyanne Conway, special counselor to President Trump, was asked to respond to the assessment given by her husband, George, that testimony of career diplomats in the first public impeachment hearings was damning for her boss. George Conway, a conservative lawyer and outspoken Trump critic, appeared on MSNBC as a guest analyst during Thursday's hearings. While introducing a clip of George Conway, CNN's Wolf Blitzer told Kellyanne Conway he wanted to ask her a “sensitive” political question.
- NewsAssociated Press
Chicago gang leader accused of trying to help Islamic State
A purported street-gang leader from suburban Chicago who became radicalized in prison faces federal charges accusing him of seeking to provide money to Islamic State militants in Syria, according to a complaint unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Jason Brown, the 37-year-old leader of the AHK gang, could be heard on secret FBI recordings speaking admiringly about beheadings by the Islamic State group, the 27-page complaint says. AHK, which prosecutors say traffics drugs throughout the Chicago area, is comprised of former members of the Black P-Stone, Gangster Disciples and Four Corner Hustlers who converted to Islam, the court filings say.
WorldAFPVietnam jails music teacher for 'undermining' state
Vietnam sentenced a music teacher to 11 years in prison on Friday for Facebook posts that allegedly undermined the one-party state, which has been accused of tightening the noose on online dissent. Communist Vietnam has long jailed its critics but has come under fire recently for targeting users on Facebook, a popular forum for activists in the country where all independent media is banned. Nguyen Nang Tinh is the latest activist jailed for his Facebook comments, including posts about police brutality, land rights, and a Taiwanese steel firm that dumped toxic sludge into the ocean, killing masses of fish off the coast of Vietnam.
U.S.Yahoo News VideoAmerican teacher's death in D.R. is being investigated Thursday as a murder
An American teacher's death in the Dominican Republic was being investigated Thursday as a murder. Police said they found Patricia Anton deceased in her apartment in Puerto Plata, on the country's northern coast, with her hands and feet bound.
NewsUSA TODAYSupreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh gets hero's welcome from conservative Federalist Society
WASHINGTON – Brett Kavanaugh waited more than 13 months to take a victory lap. On Thursday night, a hero's welcome greeted the associate justice who made it to the Supreme Court by the narrowest of margins last October after two contentious Senate confirmation hearings. The annual black-tie dinner of the Federalist Society – the nation's premier gathering of conservatives in the law – is dedicated to the memory of the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.
- WorldReuters
Moving university to Vienna, Soros vows to defend academic freedom from Orban
Billionaire George Soros opened the new main campus of his Central European University in Vienna on Friday, saying it would not halt its struggle to defend academic freedom from Viktor Orban, the right wing leader he says hounded it from Hungary. Since it was founded by Soros in 1991, CEU has been a gateway to the West for thousands of students from eastern Europe, offering U.S.-accredited graduate degree programmes in an academic climate that celebrates free thought. "CEU has steadfastly defended the principle of academic freedom against a concentrated attack by the corrupt government of Viktor Orban, who was hellbent to destroy it," Soros said at the inauguration of CEU's Vienna campus.
- NewsThe National Interest
The U.S. Marine Corps Is Making Big Changes (Thanks to Threats from Russia and China)
Currently the Marine Corps deploys infantry battalions to Okinawa, Japan on a rotational basis as part of the Unit Deployment Program. While in Japan, the battalions fall under 4th Marine Regiment, which has a permanent headquarters in Okinawa. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, while not part of the Unit Deployment Program, contributes another infantry battalion to Okinawa for several months per year.
- PoliticsNational Review
Sanders, AOC to Introduce Over $100 Billion Plan to Make Public Housing Environmentally Friendly
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) plan to introduce legislation on Thursday that makes public housing more energy efficient, at a cost of over $100 billion. The plan, dubbed the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, will call for renovation of public housing units to install community gardens and organic grocery stores along with on-site childcare services, according to the Washington Post. “Importantly, the working people who have been most impacted by decades of disinvestment in public housing will be empowered to lead this effort and share in the economic prosperity that it generates for our country,” Sanders said in a statement.
- WorldBusiness Insider
One of Jamal Khashoggi’s close friends said Twitter is the 'only free platform' for many Saudis, but it also may have led to Khashoggi’s brutal murder
Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi activist in exile in Canada, said that Twitter is an important tool for many Saudi dissidents but comes with risks. Abdulaziz was friends with murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The two of them were working to create an "army" of internet users to combat Saudi propaganda before Khashoggi was killed.
- PoliticsThe Daily Beast
Republicans Thought Yovanovitch Would Be a Pushover. She Beat Them Up Instead
Yovanovitch methodically outplayed a series of Republican efforts to cast her firing as normal, the president's behavior as unremarkable, and the harm she suffered as negligible–rather than the prelude to a shadow diplomatic effort to coerce Ukraine into aiding Trump's reelection. Instead, she made it clear that she would have been an obstacle to the president's pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had she remained in Kyiv. At one point, she told Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) that she would have opposed the summer 2019 suspension of $400 million in U.S. military aid and would never have asked Zelensky to pursue the conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
- NewsThe Independent
American war veteran who spent several days in ICE detention receives $190k settlement
A US citizen and military veteran suffering from a mental health condition will reportedly receive $190,000 (£147,988) from a Michigan city after local officials transferred him to ICE detention following an arrest last year. Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, a decorated Marine veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, was arrested while experiencing an episode in which he lost all recollection, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Police found the veteran, who was born and raised in Michigan, on the helipad of a hospital after he started a small fire and pulled an alarm, according to reports.
- TechnologyAssociated Press
Huawei sells folding smartphone with no Google after US ban
Chinese tech giant Huawei is selling its first folding smartphone without Google apps or U.S.-made processor chips following sanctions imposed by Washington. It competes with Samsung's Galaxy Fold launched in September. Huawei Technologies Ltd., China's first global tech brand, is scrambling to preserve its business following U.S. controls imposed in May on sales of American components and technology to the company, which Washington says is a security risk.
WorldAFPKhamenei says Iran wants removal of Israel state not people
Iran's supreme leader said Friday that calls for the abolition of Israel which have sparked outrage in the West target the "imposed state" not the Jewish people. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the future of the land should be decided by Palestinians of all faiths, Jewish as well as Christian and Muslim. "The 'abolition of the Israeli regime' ... does not mean the abolition of Jewish people; we have no problem with them," Khamenei told a meeting of Islamic countries in Tehran, according to his official website.
- NewsUSA TODAY
Georgia inmate executed for 1994 convenience store killing as last-minute DNA test denied
A Georgia inmate sentenced to death for fatally shooting a convenience store clerk during a robbery 25 years ago was executed Wednesday night, authorities say. Ray Jefferson Cromartie, 52, was pronounced dead at 10:59 p.m after lethal injection at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, the state's department of corrections said. Cromartie was convicted of the 1994 killing of Richard Slysz at a Thomasville convenience store, but his lawyers recently had appealed for DNA testing of evidence they say could have exonerated Cromartie after a new statement from one of the men involved in the robbery.
- WorldReuters
China envoy threatens Sweden over award to detained writer Gui Minhai
China threatened Sweden with unspecified "counter measures" if its culture minister attends a literary award ceremony on Friday for Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen who was abducted in Thailand in 2015 and is now in detention in China. The case of Chinese-born Gui Minhai, who studied in Sweden in the 1980s and was based in Hong Kong when he published books critical of China's leaders, has soured relations between Sweden and China. Svenska PEN, a literary organization, has awarded Gui Minhai the 2019 Tucholsky Prize, praising his work in the service of free speech.
- BusinessThe National Interest
Rather Than Retiring, The Storied B-52 Is Getting Upgraded. Here's Why
Sixty-seven years after the U.S. Air Force received its last B-52 from Boeing, the flying branch finally has firmed up plans to fit the heavy bomber with new engines. "If Air Force plans hold up, the B-52 will be approaching nearly a century of service by 2050," reporter John Tirpak wrote. In addition to new motors, the 76 B-52s in Air Force service also could get upgraded avionics, defensive gear, sensors and ejection seats, War Zone reporter Joe Trevithick revealed.
