WorldYahoo News‘They responded by killing us’: Nigerians seek to end police brutality with #EndSARS protests
Protests calling for an end to police brutality in the West African country of Nigeria turned deadly this week after soldiers in Lagos opened fire on demonstrators on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people. Soldiers from a police unit called the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS, shot at protesters who had gathered in the Lekki toll gate area of Lagos, according to Amnesty International. There was] no provocation whatsoever,” Chioma Agwuegbo, an activist in Nigeria, told Yahoo News in a video chat interview.
U.S.INSIDERA sheriff's sergeant is questioning the rescued Zion National Park hiker's story, saying there's no way she could have survived for 2 weeks off river water
Holly Courtier was found in Zion National Park in Utah on Sunday, nearly two weeks after she disappeared on a day hike. Sgt. Darrell Cashin, who helped the search-and-rescue effort, now says he has questions about Courtier's story and pointed out discrepancies. For example, Courtier's daughter told CNN that her mother hit her head early in the hike and became so dehydrated that she couldn't open her mouth.
PoliticsUSA TODAYFact check: Biden leveraged $1B in aid to Ukraine to oust corrupt prosecutor, not to help his son
The claim: Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion from Ukraine to assist his son, Hunter Biden While former Vice President Joe Biden oversaw foreign policy in Ukraine, his son Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, the largest gas company in the fledgling democracy. Despite a recently concluded investigation by Senate Republicans that found no wrongdoing by the Bidens, claims to the contrary have continued to circulate on social media. "VP Biden threatened to withhold 1 billion dollars from Ukraine to save his son's job," reads a meme posted to Facebook by Secure America Now.
LifestyleArchitectural DigestThe 2021 IKEA Catalog Is Finally Here!
An array of nifty products that are both brand-new and tried-and-true Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
WorldAssociated PressGaza nurses protest loss of Israeli permit, layoffs
A group of nurses from the Gaza Strip staged a protest in a public square on Wednesday, saying an Israeli travel ban has led the Jerusalem hospital where they worked for many years to fire them. The seven nurses gathered at a public square in Gaza City, wearing lab coats and holding banners that said: “Firing us is a death sentence on our profession and families.” “We never expected that Makassed would dismiss us arbitrarily,” said Baher Lulu, 53, a critical care nurse who said he joined the hospital 30 years ago, when travel from Gaza to Jerusalem did not require Israeli permission.
PoliticsYahoo NewsTrump has sparked a shift in how some conservatives talk and think about abortion
A political cartoon that's been widely shared on Facebook shows a horse labeled “Christian Voters” pulling a buggy with an elephant — the GOP — holding the reins, while the horse tramples over three individuals who represent “the Widow,” “the Orphan” and “the Stranger.” The Republican elephant dangles a giant carrot — labeled “Overturn Roe v. Wade” — in front of the horse, while driving a cart labeled “Corporate Interests” that carries bags of money bearing the words “Tax Cuts for 1%.” It's a critique of conservative evangelicals that is picking up steam — including among evangelicals.
- WorldChristian Science Monitor
After teacher’s murder, France touts secularism. But Muslims feel heat.
Marie Saumet was meant to be enjoying last weekend relaxing with friends in the northern French town of Tours. Instead, she donned her mask, made a sign reading “Je suis enseignante” (“I am a teacher”), and joined the tens of thousands of people across France protesting the killing of junior high teacher Samuel Paty last Friday in the sleepy town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. “Freedom of expression is part of our national education program, and teachers are the ones taking on these politicized topics,” says Ms. Saumet, who is a history and geography teacher in the Paris suburbs.
- WorldAssociated Press
UN says shipwreck off Libya left 15 migrants dead
At least 15 migrants trying to reach Europe drowned in the Mediterranean Sea when their boat capsized off the coast of Libya, the U.N. migration agency said Wednesday, the latest shipwreck off the North African country. Safa Msehli, spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration, said fishermen rescued at least five migrants and returned them to the town of Sabratha Tuesday. The boat departed from the western town of Zawya Sunday night, and capsized 18 miles (29 kilometers) off the coast, she said.
PoliticsThe Independent'Desperate smear campaign': Biden breaks silence on son's laptop as Delaware AG refers Rudy Giuliani's child endangerment claims to FBI
Joe Biden broke his silence on Hunter Biden's laptop to dispute claims his son enriched himself using the family name as "garbage" from Donald Trump's henchman, Rudy Giuliani, in a desperate, last-ditch smear campaign. It comes as the Delaware Department of Justice confirmed to The Independent that it has referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation the latest claims from Mr Giuliani that possible evidence of child endangerment was found on the laptop. When asked if there was any legitimacy to a Homeland Security report alleging his son profited off the former vice president's name, Mr Biden said there was "none whatsoever" and that the “vast majority of intelligence people” said there wa...
PoliticsYahoo NewsWhy 780 retired generals and former national security leaders spoke out against Trump
On June 1, retired Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli sat staring out at the Pacific Ocean in Gearhart, Ore., where his family had vacationed throughout his long military career. In a Rose Garden speech that afternoon, President Trump addressed the racial justice protests spreading across the nation after the brutal killing of George Floyd in police custody a week earlier. In the speech, Trump proclaimed himself “your president of law and order,” and claimed the protests had been hijacked by “professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rider rioters, antifa and others” intent on “domestic terror.”
- PoliticsReuters Videos
Obama: Trump can't even 'protect himself'
Obama returned to the campaign trail on Wednesday, launching a blistering attack on Trump with less than two weeks to go before the Republican president's Election Day face-off with Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Speaking at a drive-in rally in Philadelphia on behalf of Biden, his former vice president, Obama offered his most pointed critique yet of his successor. Obama, who governed for two terms and remains one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, blasted Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, noting that the president himself had fallen victim to the virus.
TechnologyBBCFake naked photos of thousands of women shared online
Faked nude images of more than 100,000 women have been created from social media pictures and shared online, according to a new report. Clothes are digitally removed from pictures of women by Artificial Intelligence (AI), and spread on the messaging app Telegram. Some of those targeted "appeared to be underage", the report by intelligence company Sensity said.
WorldAssociated PressTurkey slams joint declaration by Cyprus, Greece and Egypt
Turkey's Foreign Ministry on Thursday slammed a joint statement by Greece, Cyprus and Egypt that condemns Turkish energy exploration in the eastern Mediterranean and numerous “provocations” that they maintain are threatening regional peace. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it “fully rejected the declaration containing baseless accusations and allegations.” During a trilateral regional summit Wednesday in Nicosia, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis urged Ankara to end its “aggressive" actions.
- WorldReuters
Congo leader boosts influence with new constitutional court judges
Three constitutional court judges selected by Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi were sworn in on Wednesday after months of delay, granting him greater influence over lawmaking and election issues and riling his coalition partner. The appointments mark a major victory for Tshisekedi over his long-serving predecessor Joseph Kabila, who has sought to maintain sway over the nine-judge court since leaving power in 2019. Tshisekedi and Kabila formed a coalition government following Democratic Republic of Congo's disputed 2018 election, but their partnership has soured.
PoliticsBusiness InsiderLawyers at a firm paid millions by the Trump campaign have donated $90,000 to Joe Biden — and only $50 to Trump
Lawyers at Jones Day, which provides outside counsel to the Trump campaign, donated $90,000 to Joe Biden between January 2019 and August 2020. In that same period, they donated just $50 to President Donald Trump's re-election campaign, a Reuters analysis showed. The company has been paid millions of dollars by the Trump campaign.
U.S.BBCEpstein: Ghislaine Maxwell denies witnessing 'inappropriate' activities
US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell said she never witnessed "inappropriate underage activities" by him, according to transcripts of a 2016 deposition. The testimony was made in a now-settled civil defamation lawsuit brought by one of the late financier's accusers, Virginia Giuffre. Ms Maxwell had long fought to keep the testimony secret.
U.S.Associated PressJudge slams DeVos for rejecting 94% of loan relief claims
Months after vowing to process a backlog of 160,000 requests for loan forgiveness from students who say they were defrauded by their schools, the U.S. Education Department has rejected 94% of claims it has reviewed, according to a federal judge who is demanding justification for the “blistering pace” of denials. In a biting decision issued Monday in California, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said the department has been denying claims using template letters that are “alarmingly curt." Alsup threatened to suspend the agency from rejecting further requests, saying its approach “hangs borrowers out to dry.”
WorldReutersExclusive: Sudan premier ready for Israel ties if parliament approves - sources
Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok is ready to proceed with normalizing relations with Israel once a yet-to-be-formed transitional parliament has approved the step, two Sudanese government sources told Reuters on Thursday. The comments are the clearest sign that Hamdok, under pressure from the United States, is willing to contemplate Sudan establishing ties with former adversary Israel. Such a move would not be imminent, because the council still needs to be established under a power sharing deal between the military officers and civilians who have been running Sudan jointly since the overthrow of autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
WorldAssociated PressMixed Philippine reaction on pope nod on gay civil unions
Pope Francis' endorsement of same-sex civil unions drew mixed reactions Thursday in the Philippines, Asia's bastion of Catholicism, with a retired bishop saying he was scandalized by it while an LGBT group welcomed the pontiff's remarks with relief. President Rodrigo Duterte's spokesman said the Philippine leader has long expressed support to same-sex civil unions but added it needed to pass through Congress. Retired Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes said he “had very serious doubts about the moral correctness” of the pontiff's position.
WorldUSA TODAYFact check: Australia never counted Aboriginal people as animals under 'Flora and Fauna Act'
The claim: Until the 1960s, Australia classified its Aboriginal population as animals under the Flora and Fauna Act That their government used to group Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as wildlife is a prevalent claim in Australia, one that's been frequently repeated in recent years online as well as by Australian politicians and celebrities. Upon becoming the first Aboriginal person elected to the New South Wales Parliament in 2003, Linda Burney said: “For the first 10 years of my life, like all Indigenous people at the time, I was not a citizen of this country. We existed under the Flora and Fauna Act of New South Wales.
PoliticsMiami HeraldDo we really want to go through this on a regular basis? Then no term limits on Supreme Court justices | Opinion
President Trump's nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court has ignited an expected, yet unfortunate, conflagration on the left. Most Americans, regardless of political party, recoil at that idea, which is why Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refuse to answer direct questions on the subject. Now their handmaids in the media and on Capitol Hill have recently trotted out another misguided proposal that they hope will be more popular — term limits for Supreme Court justices.
PoliticsThe Daily BeastBiden Needs to Call Trump What He Is: A Lifelong Racist
Thursday night's presidential debate will be the last time President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden will face off before Election Day. Biden, who has been outpacing Trump in the polls, needs this debate to be the closer. No matter how liberal or conservative voters are, they can't deny that Trump has had a problem on this issue of race from the very beginning.
U.S.ReutersJudge drops lesser charge against ex-police officer in Floyd death, keeps two others
A judge dismissed a lesser murder charge against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin but said he still had to face the most serious murder charge in George Floyd's death in May, according to a court ruling released on Thursday. Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill said prosecutors did not have probable cause to charge Chauvin with third-degree murder but said the evidence supported taking a second-degree murder charge, which could lead to decades in prison, to trial.
WorldAssociated PressIn Dubai, oil-rich UAE sees a new wonder: A coal power plant
A new wonder is rising in the southern desert of Dubai against the backdrop of Persian Gulf beaches, but it's not another skyscraper to grace the futuristic sheikhdom. The construction of the $3.4 billion Hassyan plant in Dubai appears puzzling, as the United Arab Emirates hosts the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency. It's also building the peninsula's first nuclear power plant and endlessly promotes its vast solar-power plant named after Dubai's ruler.
ScienceBBCSatellites picture methane across the globe
Pulse combines the focussed data from the company's two small methane-detecting spacecraft with the wide-field observations from the EU and European Space Agency's Sentinel-5P Tropomi mission. The Canadian pair are used to "tune up" the European detections so the map can display concentrations on a 2km by 2km grid scale. Eye in the sky leaves polluters nowhere to hide European satellites to map global CO2 emissions Methane pulse detected from South Sudan wetlands Centre the map over northern China and you can see the effect the country's coal mines have in raising concentrations.
“Until solar and wind power take more of the energy load, I like not paying an arm and a leg to heat my house.”
“It is imperative to ramp down greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible.”
“Any kind of ban on fracking would cause severe damage to our stressed economy.”
“Climate scientists are urging us to leave all fossil fuels in the ground so that they’ll never be burned. That includes natural gas.”
“Any immediate economic repercussions to the economy can be offset if oil-and-gas companies are made to pay their fair share.”