New audio shows UK could not prevent Iran takeover of tanker

The release Sunday of an audio recording has shed new light on the seizure of a British-flagged tanker at the hands of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as tensions flare in the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The audio released by maritime security risk firm Dryad Global shows that a British frigate was too far away from the targeted tanker to keep it from being diverted into an Iranian port despite U.K. efforts to keep it from being boarded. On the recording, a stern-voiced British naval officer insists that the U.K.-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero must be allowed to sail through the Strait of Hormuz even as Iranian paramilitary forces demand — successfully — that the vessel change course.

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  British warship was an hour from tanker seized by Iran in 'hostile act'

  The Telegraph
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  Iran tanker crisis 'ominous' for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, husband says

  The Telegraph

Vatican opens burial chambers in hunt for princesses and missing teen

The Vatican on Saturday opened two burial chambers discovered under a trapdoor as it attempts to get to the bottom of a riddle involving two 19th-century princesses and a teenager who went missing 36 years ago. The ossuaries were found last week under the floor of the Pontifical Teutonic College after the shock discovery earlier this month that the bones of the princesses had disappeared from tombs in the Teutonic Cemetery. The graves of Princess Sophie von Hohenlohe and Princess Charlotte Federica of Mecklenburg, who died in 1836 and 1840, were exhumed after an anonymous tip-off that they may hold the remains of a missing Italian youngster.

Secrets: Everything You Wanted to Know About Israel's Nuclear Weapons

The Iranian nuclear nonproliferation agreement has been the top foreign policy issue throughout Washington for the past two months.  Approving or disapproving the deal was the first order of business for the U.S. Congress until the very last day of congressional action under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (September 17).  Hours of debate have been conducted on the floors of the House and Senate, both chambers have held roll call votes, and Senate Democrats bonded together to filibuster a motion of disapproval — a resolution that would have prevented President Obama from providing the Iranians sanctions relief. The Obama administration's main selling point for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is based on the theory that forcing Tehran to downgrade its nuclear program will make the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East — the world's most frenetic and violent region even without nuclear weapons— far less urgent.  Yet we should remember that there is in fact a state in the region that already possesses nuclear weapons.

Booker Says He Could Confront Biden on Race at Detroit Debate

Booker, a New Jersey senator, said it would be “fair” to bring up the 1994 crime bill, which Biden supported in the Senate and has called the “Biden crime bill.” Booker said the measure put “mass incarceration on steroids” for African Americans. “Yeah, it is fair,” Booker said on CBS News's “Face the Nation,” when asked by host Margaret Brennan whether he would be more aggressive on race at the forums in Detroit on July 30-31.

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  Liz Cheney says Trump's attack on congresswomen "isn't about race"

  CBS News Videos
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  CBS News poll: Most Americans disagree with Trump's "go back" tweets

  CBS News Videos

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.

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.

Bernie 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.

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  2020’s Underdogs Are Attacking Bernie Sanders at Their Own Peril

  The Daily Beast
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  Democrats' 'Medicare For All' Debate Is Starting To Get Ugly

  HuffPost

Is a new US-led war looming with Iran?

The United States is deploying troops in Saudi Arabia as tensions soar with its arch-rival Iran raising concerns over navigation in the Gulf's strategic Strait of Hormuz. It will be the first deployment of its kind since 2003, when American forces withdrew from the kingdom after a 12-year presence and two US-led wars with Iraq that culminated with the toppling of dictator Saddam Hussein. Separate statements from Riyadh and the US Central Command, or CENTCOM, say the Saudi deployment aims to ensure stability in the turbulent Gulf.

Irish, EU governments sound out Johnson to avoid no-deal Brexit: Sunday Times

Ahead of Boris Johnson's likely election next week as Britain's prime minister, EU countries are secretly wooing him in a bid to thrash out a new Brexit plan that would avoid a no-deal disaster, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. Senior Irish politicians and diplomats have held talks with two of Johnson's cabinet allies in recent days, it said. German and French figures as well as the Dutch and Belgian governments have also established contact with Johnson's team and signaled an intention to do a deal, it added.

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  Philip Hammond confirms he will step down as Chancellor if Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister

  Evening Standard
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  Future relationship with EU can be changed, Ireland's Coveney tells new UK PM

  Reuters

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 ...

Lawmaker describes 'unacceptable' border detention conditions, meets with US citizen in Border Patrol custody

WASHINGTON – A U.S. lawmaker described 'unacceptable' border detention facilities while meeting with a U.S. citizen who was in Customs and Border Patrol custody for hours on Friday. Rep. Nannette Barragán, D-Calif. had been on a congressional tour of facilities on the southern U.S. border when the delegation stopped at the Ursula Detention Center, a Border Patrol processing and detention center near McAllen, Texas.

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  Democratic delegation makes trip to the southern border

  FOX News Videos
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  Schumer Leads Dem Senate Delegation in Visit to Border, Describes Conditions as 'Inhumane'

  Storyful

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.

The Air Force Has Sent Stealth F-22 Raptors to Qatar to Deter Iran

David Axe Technology, Middle East Very powerful. Since becoming operational in 2005, the F-22 has achieved roughly a 50-percent readiness rate, on average -- one of the lowest rates of all U.S. fighter types. The Raptor's complex systems and delicate, radar-absorbing coating require intensive maintenance.

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  F-35 Dead: In 2017, America's Top Stealth Fighter Was 'Killed' in a Wargame

  The National Interest
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  Unstealthed: This Is How Easily the F-22 Can Lose Its Radar-Absorbing Coating

  The National Interest

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

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.

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  Bosnia buries 86 victims of 1992-95 war recovered from grisly ravine

  Reuters
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  86 victims of Bosnian war buried 27 years after massacre

  AFP

Israeli minister boasts his country has been 'killing Iranians'

An Israeli minister boasted Sunday that his country was the only one that "has been killing Iranians", after tensions between Britain and Iran rose in the Gulf. Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi's comments to public radio were a reference to Israeli strikes in neighbouring Syria against Iranian and Hezbollah military targets. Asked if he feared that Israel would not receive the backing of the United States in the case of a conflict with Iran, Hanegbi suggested that Tehran would avoid such a scenario.

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  US intensifies air patrols over the Strait of Hormuz

  ABC News Videos
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  Iran crisis: How a British oil tanker was seized by Iran's balaclava-clad Revolutionary Guards

  The Telegraph

Iran tanker crisis 'ominous' for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, husband says

The husband of jailed British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said he is worried her future has become “more uncertain and ominous” after Iran's seizing of a UK tanker in the Gulf. Richard Ratcliffe has expressed concerned for his wife, whom he has not heard from since she was moved on Monday from Tehran's Evin prison to a psychiatric hospital. Mr Ratcliffe said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, who had recently ended a 15-day hunger strike, has not been allowed contact for almost a week.

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  Tanker crisis unites Iran’s squabbling factions in universal condemnation of Britain, its old adversary

  The Independent
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  British warship was an hour from tanker seized by Iran in 'hostile act'

  The Telegraph

U.S.-South Korean military exercise to proceed: top South Korean official

A top South Korean official on Saturday said a U.S.-South Korean military exercise would go ahead as planned next month, denying Pyongyang's charges that holding it would breach an agreement made between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "The nature of the exercise is not offensive ... and is for strengthening the alliance," Choi Jong-kun, the secretary for peace planning to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, told the Aspen Institute's annual strategic forum. Later, speaking with Reuters, Choi said next month's exercise would largely involve computer simulations and not troops in the field.

Will Taiwan Get the New F-16V Fighters It Desperately Wants?

Sebastien Roblin Security, And how mad will China get? On July 8, the U.S. State Department announced it would approve a $2.2 billion arms deal with Taiwan including 108 Abrams main battle tanks and 250 Stinger man-portable surface-to-air missiles—a deal which elicited new sanctions from Beijing on the companies involved. But the announcement was more notable for what the approval didn't include—a nearly done-deal for sixty-six F-16V jet fighters built fresh off the F-16 production line in Greenville, South Carolina.