WorldAFPBritain tells UN tanker seizure was 'illegal interference'
A top British representative to the United Nations has declared in a letter to the Security Council that Iran's seizure of a British-flagged tanker amounted to "illegal interference," and he rejected Tehran's version of events. Iranian authorities impounded the Stena Impero with 23 crew members aboard after patrol boats of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized it Friday in the highly sensitive Strait of Hormuz. Iranian officials said the tanker had turned off its transponder after hitting an Iranian fishing boat and was detained after failing to respond to distress calls.
- WorldReuters
UPDATE 2-U.S. says Venezuelan plane aggressively shadowed a U.S. military aircraft
The U.S. military on Sunday accused a Venezuelan fighter aircraft of "aggressively" shadowing a U.S. Navy EP-3 Aries II plane over international airspace, a fresh sign of growing hostility between the two countries. The encounter between the two planes occurred on Friday, the same day that the Trump administration announced it was imposing sanctions on four top officials in Venezuela's military counterintelligence agency. In a statement issued Sunday, the U.S. military said that it had determined the "Russian-made fighter aggressively shadowed the EP-3 at an unsafe distance in international airspace for a prolonged period of time, endangering the safety of the crew and jeopardizing the EP-3 ...
- NewsThe Daily Beast
Private Investigator Says He Shared Two Epstein Female Fixer Names with Feds
Private investigator Michael Fisten first started digging into financier Jeffrey Epstein's alleged sex trafficking crimes more than a decade ago when attorney Brad Edwards hired him. After Epstein signed a non-prosecution deal with federal prosecutors in 2008, Edwards had sued Epstein in civil court on behalf of a number of alleged victims who had been blindsided by the plea deal (which a judge later ruled to have violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act). Fisten was tasked with finding as much incriminating information on the financier as he could.
- WorldAssociated Press
Vatican college space holds bones of dozens, expert says
A genetics expert retained by the family of a girl who went missing in 1983 said Saturday that a cavernous underground space near a Vatican cemetery holds thousands of bones that appear to be from dozens of individuals, both "adult and non-adult." The expert, Giorgio Portera, said the "enormous" size of the collection under the Teutonic College was revealed when Vatican-appointed experts began cataloguing the remains, which were discovered last week . "We didn't expect such an enormous number" of bones and other remains which "had been thrown into a cavity," Portera said.
- PoliticsPolitico
O'Rourke and de Blasio spar over 'Medicare for All'
Bill de Blasio blasted Beto O'Rourke on Saturday over the former Texas lawmaker's opposition to “Medicare for All,” accusing his fellow Democratic presidential candidate of engaging in "lazy fear mongering tactics" as the health care policy debate ratchets up. Let's leave the lazy fear mongering tactics to Trump," the mayor of New York tweeted after O'Rourke said getting rid of private health care would force a majority of Americans off their existing insurance. O'Rourke opposes the single-payer health care plan — which would eliminate private insurance — and instead advocates for a plan that preserves employment-based insurance while giving individuals the option to switch to a new Medicare-based program.
- NewsUSA TODAY
Universal Orlando reopens after police respond to report of a gunman in parking garage
Universal Orlando went under lockdown Saturday night after police received a report of a gunman spotted in a parking garage. Police arrived shortly after 8:30 p.m. local time and, along with Universal security staff, temporarily shut down both of Universal's parking garages to guests while they assessed the area. It was later deemed safe and park activity returned to normal.
- NewsThe National Interest
Alleged American ISIS Sniper Brought Home by the Defense Department to Face Charges
An American citizen who allegedly served as a sniper for ISIS and became a leader for the terrorist group is expected to appear in federal court on Friday after being returned to the United States by the Defense Department, officials said. Ruslan Maratovich Asainov, who was born in Kazakhstan and became a naturalized U.S. citizen, is charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to ISIS, the Justice Department announced on Friday. A U.S. official confirmed to Task & Purpose that the Defense Department had transported Asainov from Syria to the United States.
- NewsTime
Amid Dangerous Heat Wave, Hundreds of Thousands of Michigan Homes Are Without Power After Severe Storms
Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Michigan are without power as much of the nation grapples with a severe heat wave. After two storms swept through the state on Friday and Saturday, Detroit-based energy company DTE announced 390,000 of its energy customers had lost electricity as of Sunday afternoon. Overall, we expect to restore 150,000 customers today and another 150,000 tomorrow, which means we will have 80% of our customers restored by the end of the day on Monday,” the company said in an emergency outage section of its website.
- ScienceBloomberg
Trump Says ‘NASA’s Back’ Thanks to ‘Rich Guys’ Paying U.S. Rent
President Donald Trump pledged to re-establish U.S. dominance in space, a day after he welcomed the surviving Apollo 11 astronauts to the White House to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. Sustained exploration that extends from our Earth to the Moon and on to the Martian surface will usher in a new era of American ingenuity,” Trump said in a message on Saturday, which he declared Space Exploration Day. Trump on Friday invited retired astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, and the family of Neil Armstrong -- the first man to walk on the moon -- to the White House to mark the space milestone.
- WorldThe Telegraph
Iran crisis: How a British oil tanker was seized by Iran's balaclava-clad Revolutionary Guards
Allahu akbar”, or God is great, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard marine was heard shouting off camera as the group took control of the British-flagged Stena Impero. Scaling down ropes onto its bow, the balaclava-wearing hijackers made a daring - and seemingly well-rehearsed - raid of the oil tanker, as seen in alleged footage released by Fars news agency last night. The wind was choppy, the skies overcast.
- WorldReuters
UPDATE 1-Suspected Japan arsonist a reclusive, quarrelsome gamer, neighbour says
The man suspected of killing 34 people in an arson attack in Japan lived alone, hundreds of kilometres from the torched Kyoto Animation studio, where he played video games non-stop and had "terrified" his neighbour just days earlier. Police late on Saturday issued an arrest warrant for 41-year-old Shinji Aoba, suspected of causing Japan's worst mass killing in two decades on Thursday when he went to the studio in western Japan, poured fuel around the entrance and shouted "Die" as he set the building ablaze, according to public broadcaster NHK. They plan to arrest Aoba, who suffered serious burns and on Saturday was airlifted to a university hospital for treatment, once he recovers, NHK said.
WorldAFPIraq Kurds arrest two suspects in killing of Turkish vice consul
Iraqi Kurdish authorities announced Saturday they had arrested two suspects involved in the murder of three people, including a Turkish diplomat, in the regional capital Arbil this week. The autonomous region's security council first said its counterterrorism unit had arrested "the main perpetrator" Mazloum Dag, a 27-year-old from Turkey's Diyarbakir region. The council had put out a wanted notice for Dag a day earlier in connection to Wednesday's killing of Turkish Vice Consul Osman Kose and two Iraqi nationals.
- WorldAssociated Press
Funeral service held for 86 Muslims killed by Serbs
PRIJEDOR, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Several thousand people attended a funeral service in Bosnia on Saturday for 86 Muslims who were slain by Serbs in one of the worst atrocities of the country's 1992-95 war. Relatives of the victims, religious leaders and others gathered at a soccer stadium near the eastern town of Prijedor, standing solemnly behind lines of coffins draped with green cloths. The Serbs later threw bombs onto the bodies, which made identifying the victims difficult.
- NewsThe Daily Beast
The Return of the Godfather: The Old Mafia Is New Again
Central command for the joint operation sent officers to the Dominican Republic and redoubled their surveillance in New York and Sicily, launching the investigation dubbed “New Connection” that netted 19 men in raids of both crime syndicates this week in Palermo, Brooklyn, Staten Island and New Jersey. Among those arrested in Italy was Thomas Gambino who happened to be back in Sicily for a “family vacation. The police used WhatsApp, the encrypted international messaging service, to launch the raids.
PoliticsFOX News VideosBernie Sanders' campaign staff demanding a 'living wage' and health care
Bernie Sanders pushes for a $15 minimum wage during his campaign; reaction from 2016 Sanders campaign staffer Tezlyn Figaro.
- BusinessUSA TODAY
Hawking ice cream, asking bad guys to chill: Triple-digit heat sizzles across much of USA
Residents across a wide swath of the Northeast and Midwest braced Sunday for more screaming heat as officials issued dire warnings, hawked ice cream – and even urged criminals to stay home and binge-watch Netflix. Temperatures at or near 100 degrees were forecast for Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston and hundreds of cities and towns in between. Since it did not cool down much Saturday night, the temperatures rose quickly, AccuWeather warned.
- WorldPopular Mechanics
10 Surprising Moon Facts! (That Were Totally Wrong)
There are plenty of conspiracy theories, recent discoveries, and just plain old misconceptions about the moon. From Popular Mechanics
- NewsThe National Interest
School Board Votes to Paint Over George Washington Mural In San Francisco
The San Francisco Board of Education unanimously voted last month in favor of painting over a George Washington mural series on a school wall depicting Washington standing over a Native American's corpse and another in the company of slaves on his Mount Vernon estate. “This is reparations,” Education Board Commissioner Mark Sanchez said in a KQED report when asked about the estimated $600,000 price tag for its removal. The 1,600-square-foot mural series titled “Life of Washington” was painted on San Francisco's George Washington High School in 1936 by a Russian-American artist and Stanford University art professor Victor Arnautoff.
- WorldBloomberg
Trump Makes His Peace With Pakistan’s Deception
Just a year and a half ago, Donald Trump tweeted that the U.S. “has foolishly given Pakistan 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit.” He then announced a suspension of that aid until Pakistan ended its relationship with various terrorist groups. Last week he welcomed Pakistan's arrest of the leader of the terrorist group that went on a four-day killing spree in Mumbai in 2008, despite the fact that he has been arrested and released several times before.
- WorldReuters
Japan undecided on response to U.S. plan for Mideast maritime coalition -PM Abe
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Sunday he had not yet decided on how to respond to an expected U.S. request to send its navy to join a military coalition to safeguard strategic waters off Iran and Yemen. "We've started to hear the United States' thinking on this and we want to keep listening carefully," he said on national television as votes were being counted for the upper house election. "At the same time, Japan also has friendly ties with Iran," Abe added.
WorldAFPIran probes seized UK-flagged tanker, Britain to hold emergency meeting
Iran warned Sunday that the fate of a UK-flagged tanker it seized in the Gulf depends on an investigation, as Britain prepared for an emergency security meeting on Tehran's action. Iranian authorities impounded the Stena Impero with 23 crew members aboard off the port of Bandar Abbas after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized it Friday in the highly sensitive Strait of Hormuz. Video footage released by Iran showed the Stena Impero tanker being surrounded by speedboats before troops in balaclavas descend a rope from a helicopter onto the vessel.
- NewsAssociated Press
1 killed, 4 injured when Alaska flight aborted on takeoff
A Maryland man visiting Alaska with his family was killed and one of his three children was critically injured Friday after their floatplane's takeoff was aborted. Alaska State Troopers identified the deceased man as Joseph Patenella, 57. The critically hurt child was flown to Anchorage for treatment, along with two other family members.
- WorldThe Telegraph
France braces for second heatwave amid fears of pollution spike
As France braces for its second heatwave this summer, with air pollution expected to spike again, Marseille has imposed speed limits on ships entering its port in an effort to curb emissions. Cruise liners cause more nitrogen dioxide pollution in the Mediterranean city than cars, according to a recent survey by a government-approved air quality monitoring organisation. Marseille has lowered the speed limit for ships entering its port from 10 to 8 knots.
- BusinessThe Independent
Explosion in popularity of hemp products leaves Texas unable to bust marijuana users
But since Greg Abbott signed the measure into law in June, county prosecutors around Texas have been dropping some marijuana possession charges and declining to file new ones, saying they do not have the time or the laboratory equipment needed to distinguish between legal hemp and illegal marijuana. Collectively, the prosecutors' jurisdictions cover more than 9 million people — about a third of Texas' population — including in Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The accidental leniency represents one of the unintended consequences states may face as they race to cash in on the popularity of products made with or from hemp.
- NewsUSA TODAY
Gabbard, AOC join lawmakers to call on Puerto Rican governor to resign over corruption scandal
WASHINGTON – Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, has joined a growing chorus of lawmakers including Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in calling for the resignation of Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló over a corruption scandal involving leaked text messages between the governor and top aides. In a Twitter video sent from San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Friday, Gabbard called "on all Democrats running for President to come here to Puerto Rico and show support for our fellow Americans" against corruption, and called for Rosselló's resignation.
