PoliticsYahoo NewsBiden campaign jumps on Trump tax-return story
Within hours of the New York Times story showing that President Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in his first year in the White House, Joe Biden's campaign released an ad comparing that amount to what middle-class wage earners typically pay. The ad, with no narration, contrasts what Trump — who has claimed to be worth as much as $10 billion — paid to the federal government to the taxes paid by a typical elementary school teacher ($7,239), firefighter ($5,283), construction manager ($16,447) or registered nurse ($10,216). On Sunday, the Times published a story analyzing Trump's tax returns that found he had paid $750 in federal taxes in both 2016 and 2017 and zero dollars in many previous years.
LifestyleMiami HeraldAmerican sued by a Thai resort after he left negative TripAdvisor review
An American was sued by a resort in Thailand after leaving a negative review on TripAdvisor — and could face two years in prison, police say. In July, Wesley Barnes left a one-star review for his June stay at Sea View Resort and Spa in Koh Chang. The review said that resort staff were “unfriendly” and that “no one ever smiles,” adding that staff seemed “like they don't want anyone there.”
BusinessReutersAustralian firm says its nasal spray reduced coronavirus growth in animal study
Australian biotech company Ena Respiratory said on Monday that a nasal spray it is developing to improve the human immune system to fight common cold and flu significantly reduced the growth of the coronavirus in a recent study on animals. A study on ferrets showed the product dubbed INNA-051, which could be used complementary to vaccines, lowered the levels of the virus that causes COVID-19 by up to 96%, the company said. The study was led by British government agency Public Health England.
U.S.TimeExclusive: As States Prepared Mail-in Ballots, Postal Service Failed to Update at Least 1.8 Million Addresses
For three weeks in August, as election officials across the country were preparing to send out mail-in ballots to tens of millions of voters, the U.S. Postal Service stopped fully updating a national change of address system that most states use to keep their voter rolls current, according to multiple officials who use the system. A USPS spokesperson acknowledged the failure in response to questions from TIME, and said that at least 1.8 million new changes of address had not been registered in the database. In normal times, hundreds of thousands of people move every week, and those numbers have increased during the COVID pandemic, which has forced millions of people, particularly young adults, to relocate at higher rates than usual, according to public polling and news reports.
PoliticsThe IndependentJill Biden shuts down question over husband's 'gaffes'
Jill Biden would not discuss whether her husband, the Democratic presidential nominee, would slip-up during his debate with Donald Trump this week. The aspirational first lady of the United States instead condemned her husband's opponent as someone whose public statements could not be compared. In an interview with CNN on Sunday, she told Jake Tapper that after president Trump, “you cannot even say the word gaffe”.
WorldAssociated PressPakistan's top court accepts appeal by Daniel Pearl's family
Pakistan's Supreme Court on Monday accepted an appeal by the family of slain American journalist Daniel Pearl seeking to keep a British-born Pakistani man on death row over the beheading of the Wall Street Journal reporter. The court delayed until next week hearing the appeal over the lower-court acquittal of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who had been on death row since his conviction in 2002 over Pearl's killing. Sheikh had been convicted of helping lure Pearl to a meeting in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi in which he was kidnapped.
WorldReutersWith EU help, Taiwan gets rare win in China naming dispute
Taiwan said on Monday the European Union had stepped in to help after a global alliance of mayors stopped referring to Taiwanese cities as part of China, in a rare win for the island amid growing Chinese pressure. China has ramped up efforts to get international groups and companies to refer on their websites and in official documents to democratic, self-ruled Taiwan as being part of China, to the ire of Taiwan's government and many of its people. Over the weekend, Taiwan officials expressed anger after the Brussels-based Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy began listing on its website its six Taiwan member cites as belonging to China.
U.S.Miami HeraldA Miami-Dade teacher gave her $425K life savings to a pilot. Here’s where he is today
A Miami-Dade County Public Schools teacher spent a career building a $425,447 retirement nest egg. Licensed pilot Michael Atkins spent three years convincing her to loan it to him. Now, Atkins will spend four years and three months in federal prison after pleading guilty to mail fraud and identity theft.
HealthUSA TODAYNo more temperature checks? CDC changing COVID-19 screenings for international air passengers
The U.S. government is halting its enhanced entry screening for certain international passengers at airports starting Sept. 14, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's replacing the current system of temperature checks and screening for COVID-19 symptoms at 15 centralized airports with one it says is a more effective strategy that "focuses on the continuum of travel and the individual passenger, including pre-departure and post-arrival education, efforts to develop a potential testing framework with international partners, and illness response." The government will shift public health efforts on the individual passenger.
- PoliticsUSA TODAY Opinion
Amy Barrett: If Democrats attack her over People of Praise membership, they'll regret it
So to all of my friends who think that the religious practice of Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, who is a member of a charismatic ecumenical community called the People of Praise, ought to bring out the bulldog in Kamala Harris and other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I say dear God, no. First, you cannot fight bigotry with bigotry; religious intolerance is just as wrong as any other kind of othering. Indulging it won't get us a more tolerant America.
WorldAssociated PressMexico official: definitive COVID-19 toll will take 2 years
Mexico's top coronavirus official said Sunday that definitive data on the country's death toll from COVID-19 won't be available for “a couple of years.” The statement by Assistant Health Secretary Hugo López-Gatell is likely to revive debate about Mexico's death toll, currently at 76,430, the fourth-highest in the world. Mexico does very little testing, and many people die without a test.
WorldReutersMerkel says German coronavirus infections could hit 19,200 a day: source
Chancellor Angela Merkel told leaders of her Christian Democrats (CDU) on Monday that coronavirus infection rate could hit 19,200 per day in Germany if the current trend continues but stressed that the economy must be kept running, a party source said. Infections have been rising in Germany for weeks. Data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany rose by 1,192 on Monday.
- WorldReuters Videos
Clashes erupt between Armenia and Azerbaijan
Armenia has declared martial law and a total military mobilization following clashes with neighboring Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The incident has prompted calls from several world powers for an end to hostilities amid fears of instability in the South Caucasus - which serves as a corridor for pipelines transporting oil and gas to world markets. Armenian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Anna Naghdalyan, saying:] "Early in the morning, around 7 a.m.
U.S.Miami HeraldHaunted house shooter thought someone had cut in line, Michigan police say
A man is dead and another is on the run after a line dispute at a haunted house early Sunday in Michigan, police say. The victim, 29, and his girlfriend were in line at Erebus Haunted Attraction, a haunted house in Pontiac, around 12:30 a.m., when another man accused them of cutting in line, the Oakland County Sheriff's office said in a news release.
PoliticsThe IndependentWhite House staff discussed what may happen if Trump loses election and refuses to leave, ex-aide says
White House staff discussed the issue of President Donald Trump refusing to accept the results of the upcoming election were he to lose power in November, according to a former aide Vice President Mike Pence. Olivia Troye, former counterterrorism and homeland security adviser to the vice president and an ex-member of the White House coronavirus response task force, warned Americans to take the president at his word when he did not commit to a peaceful transition of power during a press briefing last week. “You know, the president, when he's joking – if he says that he's joking, he's telling you a half-truth and in there is something fairly frightening and scary,” Ms Troye told CNN's Wolfe Blitzer in an interview on Friday.
WorldAssociated PressSouth China Sea Watch: China holds drills amid new tensions
CHINA HOLDS NEW DRILLS AMID UPTICK IN TENSIONS China is holding new military exercises in the South China Sea amid an uptick in tensions between the Asian giant and its Southeast Asian neighbors and the U.S. The Maritime Safety Administration issued a pair of announcements blocking off seas around the area of the exercises running Sunday through Monday but gave no additional details. China holds regular drills in the area and there was no immediate indication they had been prompted by recent events. However, they follow a series of sorties earlier this month by Chinese warplanes into Taiwan's airspace at the northern end of the South China Sea.
- WorldReuters
'Music is not a crime': U.N. experts urge Nigeria to lift singer's death sentence
U.N. rights experts asked Nigeria on Monday to release a 22-year-old singer who was condemned to death over an allegedly blasphemous song, and said the sentence broke international law. Yahaya Aminu Sharif was sentenced last month by a sharia court in Kano, the commercial hub of Nigeria's mostly Muslim north, after he performed the song and shared it on WhatsApp. "Music is not a crime," read a joint statement from the group of U.N. rapporteurs.
WorldBBCMeng Wanzhou: The PowerPoint that sparked an international row
A PowerPoint at the heart of the case The PowerPoint was used by Ms Meng at a meeting with the bank HSBC on 22 August 2013, and is seen as key evidence against her. Reuters news reports in the preceding months had raised questions about whether there had been a breach of trade sanctions on Iran by Hong Kong-based firm Skycom. At issue was whether Skycom, a telecoms equipment seller, was simply a business partner of Huawei's - or a front for it to conceal its activities in Iran.
PoliticsThe IndependentBiden holds commanding 10-point lead in polls as Trump demands 'drug test' before Tuesday's debate
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden continued his dominance in national polling over Donald Trump on Sunday, leading the incumbent by double-digit percentage points in one and by 8 points in another. While just 40 per cent of respondents to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Sunday said they approve of Mr Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, 52 per cent said they approve of his stewardship of the economy. In a head-to-head matchup, Mr Biden paced Mr Trump, 54-44 per cent. When third party candidates were included, that margin shrunk to 49-43 per cent.
WorldAssociated PressChurch says Cardinal Pell returning to Vatican in crisis
Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis' former finance minister, will soon return to the Vatican during an extraordinary economic scandal for the first time since he was cleared of child abuse allegations in Australia five months ago, a church agency said Monday. Pell will fly back to Rome on Tuesday, CathNews, an information agency of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference said, citing “sources close to” Pell. Pell's return follows Francis last week firing one of the cardinal's most powerful opponents, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, over a financial scandal.
WorldReutersUK government brings in new legal restrictions for northeast England
British health minister Matt Hancock said on Monday the government was introducing legal restrictions on households mixing in northeastern England to try to reduce a growing number of coronavirus cases. "Unfortunately, the number of cases continues to rise sharply," Hancock told parliament. "We know that a large number of these infections are taking place in indoor settings outside the home.
HealthMiami HeraldFlorida’s total COVID-19 case count passes 700,000. South Florida reports no deaths
As the state pushes into what it calls Phase 3 of its reopening, the state's COVID-19 dashboard reported 1,882 new cases and 10 deaths, none of which came from South Florida. Florida's counted 700,564 total cases and 14,100 total deaths in the novel coronavirus pandemic. Of the latter number, 14,032 were Florida residents.
BusinessBusiness InsiderElon Musk says Tesla will 'probably' make 20 million electric vehicles a year by 2030 — more than 50 times what it produced last year
CEO Elon Musk said Tesla expected to produce 20 million electric vehicles per year before 2030. This is more than 50 times what Tesla produced in 2019. Musk also said he expected the electric vehicle market to produce more than 30 million vehicles annually by 2027.
PoliticsUSA TODAYPentagon unlikely to swoop in if Biden wins and President Trump disputes election result
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump can't expect military aid from the Pentagon if he disputes the election results, according to the military's top officer and the leading Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Trump has twice in recent days declined to promise a peaceful transition if he loses the Nov. 3 election. Democrats blasted him for the comments, and some Republican leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have promised an "orderly" handover of power should former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, win the election.
U.S.Associated PressNew wildfires scorch wine country near San Francisco
California firefighters battled destructive new wildfires in wine country north of San Francisco Monday as strong winds fanned flames in the already badly scorched state. The new fires erupted Sunday in the famed Napa-Sonoma wine region and in far Northern California's Shasta County, forcing hasty evacuations of neighborhoods. Flames engulfed the distinctive Chateau Boswell Winery north of St. Helena, The Black Rock Inn in the small community of St. Helena and multiple homes in the city of Santa Rosa, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
“Enfranchising 16-year-olds would be good for them and good for our democracy.”
“At 16, most kids have little awareness of politics, civics, or American history.”
“Voting is habit forming...which underscores the importance of having as stable an environment as possible for the youngest voters.”
“Keeping the voting age at 18 is not a slap at 16-year-olds. It is recognition that an informed electorate is the best kind.”
“When young people’s participation lags badly, issues important to them receive short shrift in the public discourse.”