India's opposition Congress backs Gandhi after poll defeat

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, offered to resign Saturday after his Congress party was trounced in a second straight national election but the gesture was rejected, party officials said. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi triumphantly accepted pledges of allegiance from members of allied parties after his second landslide win, Congress leaders licked their wounds at a special meeting in New Delhi. "Party President Rahul Gandhi offered his resignation but it was unanimously rejected by the members of Congress Working Commission," Randeep Surjewala, a party spokesman, told reporters.

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  India's president appoints Modi as premier for 2nd term

  Associated Press
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  Pakistan PM Khan speaks with India's Modi to congratulate him on election win

  Reuters

51 attorneys general call on Betsy DeVos to cancel up to 42,000 disabled veterans' student debts

In April last year, DeVos announced a new partnership between the Departments of Education and Veterans Affairs that would match borrowers in the Department of Education's records system with disabled veterans in the Department of Veterans Affairs records system. People deemed eligible for loan discharges would be mailed a letter including an application for "totally and permanently disabled" (TPD) status. Under the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, if student borrowers die or become permanently disabled, they are eligible to have their loans forgiven, so a successful granting of TPD status would allow for the complete discharge of student loans.

US sanctions on Iran felt in Iraqi Shiite tourist districts

For years, Karar Hussein has sold sweets in his shop near the entrance to one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines, accepting whatever currency was offered to him by his clients, many of them religious tourists from neighboring Iran. Hussein and many other shop owners in Baghdad's northern Shiite holy neighborhood of Kadhimiya have seen sales drop sharply over the past year since President Donald Trump began re-imposing sanctions on Iran, home to the largest number of Shiite Muslims around the world. The value of Iran's currency, the rial, has decreased almost fourfold, pushing the price of nearly everything beyond the reach of ordinary Iranian consumers in Iran and abroad.

102-year-old woman facing eviction gets offer of help from Schwarzenegger

A 102-year-old woman is being evicted from her Ladera Heights home of nearly 30 years - but friends like former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and local officials are vowing to help her.

Germany in push to resurrect Afghan talks with Taliban

Germany, a leading donor and member of the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan, has been talking with the Taliban and the Afghan government in an effort to restart peace talks to end 18 years of conflict, officials said. While the Taliban have been talking with U.S. officials since October about a withdrawal of international troops, they have so far refused formal talks with the Western-backed government, which they dismiss as a "puppet" regime. Berlin's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Markus Potzel, has visited Kabul for talks with the Afghan government and met Taliban officials in Doha at least twice this month.

Violence and disruption against abortion clinics at highest rates since 1999

Violence and disruption against abortion clinics in the US increased to its highest levels since the 1990s last year, a report by the National Abortion Federation has found. The increase in violence was attributed, at least in part, to president Donald Trump and his administration's rhetoric. “Anti-choice individuals and groups have been emboldened by the rhetoric of president Trump, vice president Pence, and other elected officials and we are seeing this play out in more instances of activities meant to intimidate abortion providers and disrupt patient services,” said Dr Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, who serves as interim president and CEO of NAF.

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  Rape survivors in the US already not able to access abortions, campaigners warn

  The Independent
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  Abortion Clinics Reported A Surge In Trespassing, Vandalism & A Historic High Of Picketing

  Refinery29

Eating Way Too Much Rice Almost Doomed Japan's Imperial Navy

After the war, the Emergency Beriberi Investigative Committee investigated the disease's devastation of Japanese ranks. In August 1882 in Incheon Bay near Seoul, four Japanese warships were locked in a tense stand-off with two Chinese warships that had brought troops to quell a revolt on the Korean peninsula. On paper, the Japanese flotilla outnumbered the Chinese, but the hulls of the Japanese ships hid a deadly secret.

Emmanuel Macron embarrassed by Marine Le Pen in elections but emerges as EU kingmaker

Emmanuel Macron suffered defeat at home in the European elections but could console himself with securing a kingmaker role that could determine the next five years of EU politics. The ardently Europhile French president was narrowly beaten by Marine Le Pen's virulently anti-EU National Rally in the French vote but stands to benefit from a fragmentation in support for the older centrist parties in the European Parliament. Ever since the first European elections in 1979, the centre-right European People's Party and centre-left Socialists and Democrats have dominated EU politics.

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  European Parliament 'needs stability,' says German politician

  CNBC Videos
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  Euro Rises as Mainstream Europe Holds Populist Parties at Bay

  Bloomberg

Two journalists released in Libya: TV channel

Two Libyan journalists held by an armed group for more than three weeks have been released, the television channel they work for said Saturday. "We congratulate the press world for the release of our two colleagues, Mohamad al-Gurj and Mohamad al-Chibani, who were kidnapped by Haftar's forces on May 2 while they were covering the assault on Tripoli," said the private channel Libya al-Ahrar, which is based in Turkey. The capital's southern suburbs have been the target of an offensive launched April 4 by Khalifa Haftar, military strongman of an eastern administration aimed at seizing Tripoli from an internationally-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).

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  Libya's Haftar rules out Tripoli ceasefire, dismisses U.N.-led talks: newspaper

  Reuters
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  2 Libyan reporters taken by commander Hifter's forces freed

  Associated Press

Hammond Warns U.K. Tory Leadership Hopefuls Over No-Deal Brexit

U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond warned Conservative leadership candidates that a government that tries to force a no-deal Brexit on Parliament risks being brought down in a no-confidence vote. “This is a very difficult situation,” he told the “Andrew Marr Show” on the BBC. “It would not just challenge me, but many of our colleagues and I hope we will never get to that position.” He dismissed talk of renegotiating the Brexit withdrawal agreement before the new October deadline as a “fig leaf” for a policy of leaving on no-deal terms.

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  Very difficult for PM May's successor to pursue a no deal exit - Hammond

  Reuters
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  Brexit party: Nigel Farage demands seat on UK’s Brussels negotiating team

  The Independent

Congregants grapple with church shooter once their colleague

Minister Joey Spann watched Friday as 27-year-old Emanuel Kidega Samson was convicted of first-degree murder for killing one person and wounding seven others when he sprayed Spann's church and its congregants with bullets in 2017. It was hard for Spann to recognize in Samson the same young man who taught Vacation Bible School at Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Nashville just years before, and who would sit up front with his cousins to hear Spann preach on Sundays. Spann said he had thought the world of Samson in those days.

AD PRO's 20 Favorite Furnishings from ICFF

Miss New York's International Contemporary Furniture Fair? Senior style and market editor Benjamin Reynaert shares his favorite new products that launched at the fair Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

Pope Francis likens abortion in any scenario to ‘hiring a hitman’

Pope Francis has compared having an abortion to hiring a hitman and said the procedure can never be condoned, even when the foetus is gravely sick. Speaking at a Vatican-sponsored anti-abortion conference, he urged doctors and priests to support families to carry all pregnancies to full term. The pontiff said that the matter was not a religious issue but a human one.

UK must be ready to leave EU without a deal: leadership contender Raab

Britain must be ready to leave the European Union without an exit deal on Oct. 31, former Brexit minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday, as he set out his pitch to succeed Theresa May as prime minister. "If you're not willing to walk away from a negotiation, it doesn't focus the mind of the other side," Raab told the BBC. "If you do that you can be really credible in Brussels." Raab said he would prefer Britain left with a deal but that he did not want to delay the planned Oct. 31 departure date.

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  Tory leadership race: Michael Gove insists he has 'evolved' since saying he was 'incapable' of being PM

  Evening Standard
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  Tory leadership race: The runners and riders and where they stand on Brexit

  Yahoo News UK

Iran state TV fires managers over 'insult' to Sunnis

Iranian state TV has fired two channel managers over a live programme deemed insulting to Sunni Muslims, it said in a statement Sunday. The sackings at Channel 5 came after a broadcast on May 20 celebrating the birthday of the second imam in Shiite Islam, Hassan ibn Ali. During the programme, religious chanter and story-teller Ahmad Qadami recited a eulogy that "insulted the sanctities of Sunni Muslims", according to official news agency IRNA.

Judge blocks Trump from building sections of U.S.-Mexico border wall

A federal judge on Friday blocked President Trump from building key sections of his border wall with money secured under his declaration of a national emergency, delivering what may prove a temporary setback on one of his highest priorities.

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  Republican blocks disaster aid bill due to lack of border wall funding

  FOX News Videos
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  Court Blocks Chunk of Border Wall Funds, Citing Trump’s Remarks as a Reason

  Rolling Stone

Police hunt suspect after explosion in French city of Lyon

French police on Saturday hunted a suspect believed to have deposited a paper bag containing a device that exploded Friday, wounding 13 people on a busy pedestrian street in the city of Lyon. French President Emmanuel Macron called the explosion an "attack" during a live interview Friday about the European Parliament elections that run through Sunday. The man was seen arriving on foot, pushing his bike along the pedestrian-only Victor Hugo street, then leaving paper bag on a concrete block in the middle of the street near a bakery.

Barr Will Get to Bottom of FBI, DOJ ‘Corruption,’ Sanders Says

Attorney General William Barr is likely to consult with the intelligence community on how best to handle classified material related to the Russian investigation as he seeks out “corruption at the FBI and the DOJ,” the top White House spokeswoman said. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, in defending President Donald Trump's moves to declassify intelligence, said on NBC's “Meet the Press” Sunday without citing evidence that people within the agencies “were specifically working trying to take down the president, trying to hurt the president. The president wants transparency, and he's given the attorney general the ability to put that transparency in place, make those decisions,”' Sanders said.

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  Former deputy assistant attorney general: The attorney general also investigates the conduct of his own department

  FOX News Videos
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  The Week in Washington: First Amendment Threats and Grotesque Taunts

  Vogue

Get the Charming Look of the Kentucky Getaway

A former Kentucky tobacco farm morphs into a high-voltage weekend wonderland of pattern, color, and open-armed hospitality Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

The F-35 Stealth Fighter Can Turn Into Beast Mode (Armed with Hypersonic Missiles)

David Axe Security, Thanks to Lockheed Martin. The U.S. military could hang more weapons under the wings of its F-35 stealth fighters. Lockheed Martin, which assembles the single-engine, radar-evading jets, in early May 2019 revealed a concept for a hypersonic surface-to-air missile that's compatible with the U.S. Navy's F-35C. Lockheed for years has been working with the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept hypersonic missile.

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  How the Stealth F-35A Just Surpassed the F-22A In One Key Metric

  The National Interest
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  Question: Who Built the Stealth F-22, F-35, F-117 the U-2 and More?

  The National Interest