| Pfizer and BioNTech Share Positive Early Data on Lead mRNA Vaccine Candidate BNT162b2 Against COVID-19 Posted: 20 Aug 2020 05:16 PM PDT |
| Global Membrane Bioreactors Industry Posted: 20 Aug 2020 04:18 PM PDT |
| Africa's week in pictures: 14-20 August 2020 Posted: 20 Aug 2020 04:13 PM PDT  A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.
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| Over 70 Republican National Security officials endorse Biden, slamming Trump for having 'failed our country' Posted: 20 Aug 2020 03:51 PM PDT  Over 70 former Republican National Security officials endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Thursday, citing President Trump's "corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as president," The New York Times reports.With a total of 73 signatories, the new letter has more support than a similar letter released in 2016, in which 50 of the nation's senior Republican National Security officials warned that then-candidate Trump "would be the most reckless president in American history." The new letter lays out 10 reasons why Trump "has failed our country," including damaging "America's role as a world leader," proving "unfit to lead during a national crisis," having "aligned himself with dictators" like North Korea's Kim Jong Un and Russia's Vladimir Putin, and having "imperiled America's security by mismanaging his national security team."Officials who served under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump all signed the letter, including former CIA and FBI chiefs. Notably absent from the list were former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former Chief of Staff John Kelly, former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, and former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who all served in, and were ousted from, the Trump administration. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton also did not sign; he has said he won't support Trump, but refuses to back Biden either.Peter Feaver, who served on the National Security Council under the Clinton and Bush administrations, told the Times that "letters like this have some unintended consequences. Trump was able to fund-raise off the 2016 letter and buy himself some anti-establishment street cred. His team even thought the letters were a net plus for him." Read the full letter here.More stories from theweek.com 5 bitingly funny cartoons about the Democratic National Convention A confused Kirsten Dunst asks Kanye West why he put her on his campaign poster Joe Biden's incomparable presidential odyssey
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| AP Exclusive: Feds to seek death sentence for Boston bomber Posted: 20 Aug 2020 03:47 PM PDT  The Justice Department will seek to reinstate a death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man who was convicted of carrying out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Attorney General William Barr said Thursday. In an interview with The Associated Press, Barr said the Justice Department would appeal the court's ruling last month that tossed Tsarnaev's death sentence and ordered a trial to determine whether he should be executed for the attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others. Barr said the Justice Department would take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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| Putin Critic Alexei Navalny Hospitalized In Suspected Poisoning Posted: 20 Aug 2020 03:34 PM PDT  Alexei Navalny, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's biggest foes, spent Thursday fighting for his life — and his spokesperson is blaming Putin. Kira Yarmysh says Navalny, 44, drank tea in the morning, and began feeling sick on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow. Video from the plane captured his painful moans, before the pilot made an emergency landing in the southern city of Omsk where he was taken to a small hospital.
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| Putin Critic Alexei Navalny In Serious Condition Posted: 20 Aug 2020 03:34 PM PDT Alexei Navalny, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's biggest foes, spent Thursday fighting for his life — and his spokesperson is blaming Putin. Kira Yarmysh says Navalny, 44, drank tea in the morning, and began feeling sick on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow. Video from the plane captured his painful moans, before the pilot made an emergency landing in the southern city of Omsk where he was taken to a small hospital.
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| EXPLAINER-The U.S. triggered a 'snapback' of U.N. sanctions on Iran, what does that mean? Posted: 20 Aug 2020 03:26 PM PDT |
| Global Coated Paper Industry Posted: 20 Aug 2020 02:58 PM PDT |
| US-Europe row as Pompeo triggers start of Iran sanctions 'snapback' Posted: 20 Aug 2020 02:49 PM PDT  The United States formally began the process Thursday of activating a controversial mechanism aimed at reimposing sanctions on Iran, a move that was immediately rejected by European allies fighting to save the Iranian nuclear deal.
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| Pompeo demands 'snapback' Iran sanctions. Other world powers may not agree. Posted: 20 Aug 2020 02:20 PM PDT  None of the other co-signatories of the deal believe the U.S. has the power to reimpose Iran sanctions because it withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018.
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| 'We're looking at it': The Trump administration has barely acknowledged the reported poisoning of Russia's top opposition leader Posted: 20 Aug 2020 02:10 PM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin's critics and opponents have a habit of getting poisoned. President Donald Trump has a habit of brushing it off.
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| Putin is counting on your vote in November. Are you in with ‘Vova?’ | Opinion Posted: 20 Aug 2020 01:50 PM PDT  Vladimir Putin is on the ballot this November.
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| Mali coup leaders suggest 'transitional president' Posted: 20 Aug 2020 01:44 PM PDT  President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta was forced to resign on Tuesday after being detained by soldiers.
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| Pompeo accuses UK and European allies of 'siding with Iran's ayatollahs' over sanctions Posted: 20 Aug 2020 01:40 PM PDT  Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, accused America's European allies of "siding with the ayatollahs" over Iran on Thursday after he initiated a controversial procedure to reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran. Britain, France and Germany said the US did not have the legal right to trigger the so-called "snapback" of sanctions because it withdrew from the Iranian nuclear accord in 2018. "No country but the United States has had the courage and conviction to put forward a resolution. Instead, they chose to side with the ayatollahs," Mr Pompeo told reporters. Mr Pompeo said at the United Nations it would be an "enormous mistake" not to extend the arms embargo on Iran, adding the US will never allow Iran to freely buy and sell conventional weapons such as tanks. The US formally began the process of activating a controversial mechanism aimed at reimposing sanctions on Iran, a contested move that widens a rift with its European allies and threatens the nuclear deal with Tehran. The letter, delivered personally to Indonesia's UN ambassador - who currently holds the Council's rotating presidency - in New York triggered the beginning of a disputed procedure called a "snapback." The procedure, never before used, comes after the US suffered a humiliating defeat at the Security Council last week when it failed to muster support for a resolution to extend a conventional arms embargo on Iran. The "E3", as the UK, France and Germany are known, said they cannot support the US move to restore UN sanctions on Iran, saying the action is incompatible with efforts to support the Iran nuclear deal. "In order to preserve the agreement, we urge Iran to reverse all measures inconsistent with its nuclear commitments and return to full compliance without delay," the three nations said in a joint statement.
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| Colombian leader says Venezuela trying to acquire Iran missiles Posted: 20 Aug 2020 01:27 PM PDT  Colombia's President Ivan Duque claimed Thursday that the government of President Nicolas Maduro in neighboring Venezuela was working to acquire missiles from its ally Iran.
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| Pompeo says U.S. will do everything it can to enforce U.N. sanctions on Iran Posted: 20 Aug 2020 01:07 PM PDT |
| E3 say cannot support U.S. move to restore U.N. sanctions on Iran Posted: 20 Aug 2020 01:00 PM PDT |
| Israel launches airstrikes after 2 rockets fired from Gaza Posted: 20 Aug 2020 12:49 PM PDT  Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed near the Israeli security fence late Thursday, and Israel carried out airstrikes on targets linked to the territory's Hamas rulers, the Israeli military said. The military said it struck a "concrete manufacturing site used for underground infrastructure and tunnel construction, belonging to the Hamas terror organization." Tensions have risen in recent days as groups affiliated with Gaza's militant Hamas rulers have launched incendiary balloons across the frontier, igniting farmland inside Israel.
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| Global Microwave Ovens Industry Posted: 20 Aug 2020 12:18 PM PDT |
| The partisan pandemic: Do we now live in alternative realities? Posted: 20 Aug 2020 12:00 PM PDT  Politics can divide even friends and families. When this happens, we like to tell ourselves that the explanation lies in honest differences in values and preferences. From this standpoint, friends from different political parties won't really disagree, for example, about the number of workers displaced in the pandemic, but they might differ on who should bear the costs. It's another matter, however, if political conflict results from differences in information or attachments to alternative realities.It's possible to disagree – but still engage – with friends or fellow citizens who evaluate the benefits of test and tracing policies for COVID-19 differently, but how do we communicate with someone who – armed with the same public information – concludes that there is no pandemic?We are behavioral economists who use controlled experiments in human decision-making to study political behavior. One of our current research programs finds that Americans who identify with a political party - that is, partisans - don't always vote for what they believe to be correct. Rather, assuming their vote won't matter much, they use it to express their partisan affiliation, even when their vote is anonymous. COVID-19 may be the exception to this rule. Political expression before COVID-19In our 2018 paper, "Partisan Bias and Expressive Voting," we found that differences arise along party lines even when people vote on the answers to factual questions about politics. Rather than reflecting sincere differences in belief, we found these responses were largely "expressive," or a way of affirming political identity.We conducted an online experiment in which we asked Democrats and Republicans a series of multiple choice questions about climate change, immigration and police shootings, among other topics.Each question had an objectively correct answer. For example, participants were not invited to evaluate the importance of climate change, about which honest differences exist. Rather, they were asked how much mean global temperature had changed. By asking respondents to identify verifiable facts, we left no role for partisan interpretation. Instead, we focused on their willingness to acknowledge facts that may conflict with their party's preferred views.Participants answered multiple choice questions as "individuals" or as members of small groups of "voters." Individuals received a cash bonus when their own answers were right. Voters got the bonus when a majority of their group was correct. We speculated that someone affiliated with climate skeptical politicians or parties might choose one answer to the question about temperature change as a voter, but another, less partisan, answer as an individual. The reason is that voters who anticipate that their own response is unlikely to be decisive in determining the group's answer may prefer to express opinions that are more favorable to their own party, while individuals know that their own answer will definitely determine whether they get the bonus.We found that, despite the financial rewards for correct responses, a partisan gap did indeed emerge among voters. On most of the questions we asked, there were substantial differences between the choices of Democrats and Republicans, with voters tending to give answers more favorable to their own party's position.If these gaps were purely due to differences in beliefs, then we would expect to see similar differences when people answered these questions as individuals. Instead, we found that people answering as individuals were much less partisan than people voting as part of a group. Additionally, individuals were far more likely than voters to correctly answer questions that challenged their party's preferred views. This suggests that the partisan differences were primarily due to expression, or the desire to affirm party affiliation, rather than sincere differences in belief. On balance, we found that Republicans were more expressive than Democrats. Cheering for your teamOur findings provide fresh perspective on a longstanding theory of how and why people vote. Citizens who recognize that their vote is rarely decisive may prefer to cast their votes, not to influence the outcome of an election, but to express themselves or reaffirm their political identities. In this light, voting has been compared to cheering for a favorite sports team. In most cases, we don't actually believe we will influence the outcome by going to a game or screaming at our televisions, but we do it because it brings us joy and helps us feel connected to fellow fans. The consequences of such expressive voting behavior can be serious. Polls indicated that the number of Leave voters who regretted their vote immediately after the learning the outcome of the June 2016 Brexit vote was similar to the margin of victory. This suggests that if voters had been less expressive, and had voted for the option they truly wanted, the course of European history might have been different. Still, our initial research indicated that citizens shared a common set of facts about the world, and so provide some reason for optimism.Unfortunately, our most recent research suggests that this isn't the case for the COVID-19 crisis, and that at least some partisans seem to live in alternative realities. COVID is differentThis spring, we returned to the field with questions for more than 600 survey respondents in the U.S. about the COVID-19 pandemic. We expected to find that, despite sometimes heated rhetoric, Americans understood, or at least didn't disagree about, the facts concerning estimates of the mortality rate and U.S. testing capacity. What we found surprised us. We asked, for example, about the number of completed tests per million residents in the U.S. relative to Italy, one week after the White House announced its "historic public-private testing partnership" on April 13. At the time, Italy had conducted about 3,000 tests per million. Our participants were offered five options for how many tests had been completed in the U.S. per million residents. The correct answer, at the time, was between 100 and 2,000.The participants who answered as part of a group were told that they would be rewarded if five or more in a random group of nine voted for the correct answer. Consistent with our previous work, voter responses varied with their political affiliation. More than 1 in 3 (34.2%) Republicans chose the answers most favorable to the Trump administration, and claimed that the U.S. performed as many or more tests than Italy. Fewer than 1 in 7 (14.2%) Democrats did. Overall, we found a large gap in the average response provided by Democrats and Republicans who voted.The surprise was that these percentages did not change much, if at all, for individuals, who were rewarded when their own answer was correct. One in 3 Republicans (33.7%) still chose the incorrect options that were most favorable to President Trump, while the number of Democrats who did likewise fell a little, from 14.2% to 12.6%. Thus, unlike the patterns we observed for non-COVID-19-related questions, we found that little of the difference can be attributed to partisan expression. We saw a similar pattern with our question regarding the COVID-19 mortality rate. Our research found that Democrats and Republicans held genuine but different beliefs, not just about values or policies, but about basic facts. To the extent that members of different parties evaluate differently the seriousness of COVID-19 and our government's response to it in their voting decisions, our results indicate that this assessment is due to differences in beliefs rather than partisan expression. [Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]While it is tempting to attribute these results to the polarization of television and radio audiences and the influence of social media – that is, to characterize the choices of our participants as somehow uninformed – it's worth repeating that we did not see the same partisan gaps in 2016, when we asked questions that were no less salient to partisans. We can only speculate as to the source of these differences. It may be that the COVID-19 threat overwhelmed our usual impulse for partisan expression, and that conflicting information in the earliest stages of the pandemic allowed separate narratives to take root. It also remains to be seen whether Democrats and Republicans will continue to live in these alternative realities, whether this division will extend to other issues, or what the consequences for the 2020 election will be. Until then, however, we may have to accept that some arguments among family and friends reflect the different worlds we now live in.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * What's in that wildfire smoke, and why is it so bad for your lungs? * 'I'm not a traitor, you are!' Political argument from the Founding Fathers to today's partisansThe authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| Mail-delivery concerns put spotlight on ballot deadlines Posted: 20 Aug 2020 11:46 AM PDT  U.S. Postal Service warnings that it can't guarantee mailed ballots will arrive on time have put a spotlight on the narrow time frames most states allow to request and return those ballots. Georgia voters can request a ballot by mail until four days before the Nov. 3 election, with completed ballots due by 7 p.m. on Election Day. New Jersey ballots mailed on Election Day must be received within 48 hours of polls closing.
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| CORRECTED-U.S. triggers effort to restore U.N. sanctions on Iran Posted: 20 Aug 2020 11:45 AM PDT |
| Video shows Muslim man's faith mocked during fatal arrest Posted: 20 Aug 2020 11:32 AM PDT  An advocacy group released what they say is previously unseen body camera footage Thursday showing Phoenix police mocking the religion of a Black Muslim man who later died in their custody. Muslim Advocates, a national civil rights organization, released video from the 2017 death of Muhammad Abdul Muhaymin Jr. in which he can be heard crying out in pain and calling for Allah, the Arabic word for God. The Phoenix Police Department is disputing that interpretation, Sgt. Mercedes Fortune said.
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| Mike Pompeo sets US on collision course with UN partners over Iran Posted: 20 Aug 2020 11:18 AM PDT  European governments reject US secretary of state's attempt to use 'snapback' mechanism to trigger nuclear sanctions Mike Pompeo has set the US on a collision course with most of its UN partners in an attempt to extend the isolation of Iran.Instead it was the US which appeared beleaguered, with Pompeo clashing bitterly with European allies, emphasising a deepening Transatlantic rift.The US secretary of state went to the UN on Thursday to set in motion a diplomatic gambit, claiming the US is still a participant in the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran – from which Donald Trump explicitly withdrew two years ago – and therefore retains the right under the rules of the deal to trigger a "snapback" or resumption of full UN sanctions.Very few other UN member states think the US has the authority to do this. Even before he made a scheduled announcement at the UN headquarters in New York, the UK, France and Germany issued a statement saying the the US was not a participant and they would not support it.In response, Pompeo denounced the Europeans as having chosen to "side with the Ayatollahs"."Their actions endanger the people of Iraq, of Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, and indeed their own citizens as well," he told reporters. "America won't join in this failure of leadership. America will not appease. America will lead."The extent of US isolation was illustrated by a related vote in the security council last week, in which it received support from the Dominican Republic alone, despite an intense and targeted lobbying campaign.Pompeo met the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and the current chair of the UN security council, the Indonesian permanent representative, Dian Triansyah Djani, in New York on Thursday, to deliver formal notice that the US considers Iran to be in non-compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).The snapback mechanism was written into the JCPOA to give the parties to the deal confidence that any one of them could reimpose sanctions if Iran violated the agreement. It was not intended for a state that had left the agreement to exploit it. The US is claiming still to be a JCPOA participant through a legal technicality, based largely on the fact that it is named as a participant in a UN resolution endorsing the JCPOA. But that stance was quickly rejected by European governments."France, Germany and the United Kingdom ("the E3") note that the US ceased to be a participant to the JCPoA following their withdrawal from the deal on May 8, 2018," a joint letter from the three governments said. "We cannot therefore support this action which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA."After a notice of non-compliance has been served, there is a 30-day window after which, in the absence of a security council resolution to the contrary, all UN sanctions in place under the 2015 deal will snap back into place.It is likely Pompeo has timed his visit to the UN so that the month-long grace period will end in time for Donald Trump's speech to the UN general assembly summit in the last week of September, allowing the president to declare that UN sanctions have been restored.The US is seeking to rally support and to put particular pressure on the UK, which has thus far stuck with European powers on the issue.Richard Gowan, the UN director at the International Crisis Group, said that US leaks earlier in the year, revealing that it had threatened the UK and other European countries with sanctions if they did not take action against Iran, had backfired."That was an exceedingly stupid move because, especially in London, ministers were deeply offended that the US was treating them in this way, and actually that was probably the first moment that the Johnson administration in London started to stiffen its spine and wonder whether it really wanted to end up supporting the US in this process," Gowan said.The outcome is expected to be messy, with conflicting versions of reality, and no clear adjudicator. The matter could be referred to the international court of justice in The Hague, but a ruling could take a year.Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations said: "Other nations appear poised to treat it like a tirade from a rampaging toddler and hope that the US swiftly grows out of its maximum pressure phase."Wendy Sherman, a former state department official who was lead US negotiator on the JCPOA, said: "This is really a process that will just be mucked around in the procedural political process of the United Nations, and at the end of the day, we'll go out with a whimper, not with a bang."Confusion may suit the Trump administration, which would be seen domestically as tough on Iran and the UN. It will also make banks and companies more skittish about financing Iranian purchases of even humanitarian goods on the global market, increasing pressure on Tehran.Most observers believe Trump and Pompeo's ultimate aim is to provoke Iran into retaliatory action, formal withdrawal from the JCPOA and expulsion of nuclear inspectors, for example, which will make it impossible to salvage the 2015 agreement even if Joe Biden wins the presidency in November.
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| Mexico rocked by claims of corruption against three former presidents Posted: 20 Aug 2020 11:15 AM PDT  Leaked deposition by recently extradited former head of state oil company Pemex alleges staggering scale of high-level corruptionMexico's political establishment has been shaken by claims that three former Mexican presidents and an all-star cast of lawmakers and aides may have been involved in alleged acts of corruption.The accusations were leveled by Emilio Lozoya, the former head of Mexico's state oil company Pemex, and will boost efforts by the country's current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to portray himself as an anti-corruption crusader.López Obrador, a 66-year-old nationalist, swept to power in 2018 pledging to rid Mexico of corruption and unseat the "mafia of power" he claimed had seized control of Latin America's No 2 economy.In a leaked 63-page deposition, Lozoya, who was extradited from Spain in July to face corruption charges of his own, dragged some of Mexico's best-known politicians into a rapidly unfolding scandal.According to the newspaper El Universal, the former Pemex chief implicated Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico's president from 2012 until 2018, in multimillion-dollar bribes and illegal campaign financing.Reuters said Lozoya also claimed that Felipe Calderón – president from 2006 until 2012 – and Carlos Salinas – from 1988 to 1994 – had committed "acts possibly constituting crimes".Lozoya worked as international relations coordinator of Peña Nieto's 2012 election campaign, and was later appointed to run Pemex."He was one of the masters of the universe," said Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez, a sociologist in Mexico City. "He was appointed to that position because he was part of Peña's most intimate circle."Lozoya was arrested in Spain in February and extradited to face charges he received more than $4m in bribes from the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.On Thursday morning López Obrador, who is widely known as Amlo, told reporters he believed the leaked document was genuine but had not read it all because he "wouldn't want to have nightmares".Amlo has previously said he hoped Lozoya's extradition would contribute to the "purification" of Mexican public life.Calderón hit back on Twitter claiming Mexico's president was seeking to weaponize the former oil boss and his "ridiculous accusations" as "an instrument of revenge and political persecution". "He's not interested in justice but in a lynching," Calderón said.Neither Peña Nieto nor Salinas responded immediately to the allegations.Few doubt the extent to which corruption has permeated elite Mexican politics. During Peña Nieto's six-year term a series of eye-watering political scandals caused public outrage, helped pave the way for Amlo's landslide election and saw Mexico slide dramatically down Transparency International's corruption index.But Calderón is not alone in suspecting that Amlo is using the investigation to eliminate powerful political opponents and bolster his corruption-fighting credentials.Some have likened the Mexican president's campaign to a high-profile anti-corruption drive waged by China's Communist party leader, Xi Jinping. That crackdown allowed Xi to jail several prominent rivals, including China's former security chief Zhou Yongkang and the Communist party heavyweights Bo Xilai and Sun Zhengcai."This is not a trial, it is a telenovela," said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a political analyst in Mexico City."Some of the things Lozoya says might be true [and] given the position he is in and the improper way in which this has been handled, this will have a tremendous political impact. But no justice will be done."Others question the timing of the revelations, suspecting they may be a deliberate distraction from the coronavirus crisis currently playing out in Mexico.Mexico now has the world's third highest death toll, after the US and Brazil, and is set to surpass 60,000 deaths in the coming days."[The leak] distracts from everything else," said Esteban Illades, editor of the Mexican magazine Nexos. "The economy is in tatters, nearly 60,000 people have died and there's not a single thing going right as of this moment. But by creating a political circus there's distraction."
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| U.S. Wants To Restore U.N. Sanctions On Iran Posted: 20 Aug 2020 10:53 AM PDT  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to tell the United Nations Security Council the U.S. will unilaterally reimpose all international sanctions against Iran. European signatories say that means the U.S. has given up its right to trigger the snapback.
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| U.S. Wants to Restore U.N. Sanctions on Iran Posted: 20 Aug 2020 10:53 AM PDT Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to tell the United Nations Security Council the U.S. will unilaterally reimpose all international sanctions against Iran. European signatories say that means the U.S. has given up its right to trigger the snapback.
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| Global Ion Exchange Resins Industry Posted: 20 Aug 2020 10:38 AM PDT |
| Germany welcomes Israeli air force for first joint exercise Posted: 20 Aug 2020 10:31 AM PDT  Germany has welcomed military aircraft from Israel to its airspace for their first joint combat exercises in German territory, a milestone which both air forces praised Thursday as a sign of the intensive cooperation between the two countries. "It was very emotional for us when, one after the other, the first Israeli jets arrived here in German airspace," a spokesman for the German Luftwaffe told German news agency dpa.
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| Florida Keys to release modified mosquitoes to fight illness Posted: 20 Aug 2020 10:16 AM PDT  Sometime next year, genetically modified mosquitoes will be released in the Florida Keys in an effort to combat persistent insect-borne diseases such as Dengue fever and the Zika virus. The plan approved this week by the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District calls for a pilot project in 2021 involving the striped-legged Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is not native to Florida. The plan by the Oxitec biotechnology company is to release millions of male, genetically-altered mosquitoes to mate with the females that bite humans because they need the blood.
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| Coronavirus in Africa: 'Signs of hope' as cases level off Posted: 20 Aug 2020 10:03 AM PDT  Health experts express "cautious optimism" that "the curve is beginning to bend" in Africa.
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| We demand clarity on how Navalny fell ill, Merkel tells Russia Posted: 20 Aug 2020 10:01 AM PDT |
| Hillary Clinton Gave State Dept. Job to Ghislaine Maxwell’s Nephew: Report Posted: 20 Aug 2020 09:51 AM PDT  Since Ghislaine Maxwell's arrest on charges of helping Jeffrey Epstein abuse underage girls, rumors have swirled about her ties to famous figures including Democratic power couple Bill and Hillary Clinton.On Tuesday, the Daily Mail published photos of former President Clinton receiving a neck massage from Chauntae Davies, one of Jeffrey Epstein's victims, during a stopover on his infamous 2002 trip to Africa with the deceased sex-trafficker. According to Davies, Maxwell was present for the voyage and encouraged Davies to give Clinton the massage. "Would you mind giving it a crack?" Clinton allegedly asked Davies, who claimed he was a "complete gentleman" during the trip.Epstein Accuser Says Bill Clinton Partied on Pedophile IslandThe unseemly images were revealed just before Clinton addressed the virtual Democratic National Convention. Davies was 22 at the time, and Clinton has denied any misconduct or knowing of Epstein's abuse of young women.Now the celebrity tabloid OK! Magazine is reporting that ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "gifted" Maxwell's nephew, Alexander Djerassi, a position within her department when he was just out of college and gave him "special treatment."The Daily Beast could not confirm details of Djerassi's appointment with the State Department nor if the role was in fact "gifted" by Clinton.The reports come as Maxwell, 58, awaits trial in a Brooklyn federal lockup for allegedly grooming and trafficking girls for Epstein.The report also appears to reference Djerassi's LinkedIn profile, which lists his role as chief of staff for the "Office of the Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs" from May 2011 to June 2012. Djerassi served as special assistant to the office from May 2009 to May 2011, his online profile says.Jeffrey Epstein Visited Clinton White House Multiple Times in Early '90sDjerassi's name also popped up in a collection of Clinton's emails hacked via WikiLeaks. In a November 2011 message, Assistant Secretary Jeffrey Feltman referred to his "special assistant, Alex Djerassi." Feltman mentioned Djerassi again in a January 2012 email, according to WikiLeaks.Djerassi was also a nonresident associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A biography on the endowment's website states Djerassi's research "focused on Tunisia and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East and North Africa." The bio adds, "From 2009 to 2012, Djerassi was chief of staff and special assistant in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, covering U.S. relations with Arab states, Israel, and Iran. He worked on matters relating to democratization and civil society in the Arab world, the Arab uprisings, and Israeli-Palestinian peace.""Djerassi has served as a U.S. representative to the Friends of Libya conferences, Friends of the Syrian People conferences, U.S.-GCC Strategic Coordination Forum, and several UN General Assemblies," the profile concludes.The role at the State Department wasn't the nephew's only Clinton-related gig.From September 2007 to June 2008, Djerassi was a policy associate for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. He listed his job duties as such: "Researched and drafted memos, briefings, and policy papers for candidate, senior staff, and news media on wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues. Prepared for more than 20 debates." (In late 2007, Epstein was under investigation for trafficking girls in Palm Beach and working on a secret plea deal with federal prosecutors. Maxwell is believed to be one accomplice who was protected under the controversial agreement.) The Yale and Princeton alum—the son of Maxwell's sister Isabel—apparently returned for Clinton's 2016 presidential run.Djerassi lists a job as "national security policy planner" for the "Clinton-Kaine Presidential Transition Team" in 2016.Maxwell's and Epstein's connections to the Clintons have faced greater scrutiny after Epstein was arrested in July 2019 for his years-long child sex trafficking scheme.As The Daily Beast reported, Epstein visited the Clinton White House multiple times in the '90s, and Maxwell attended Chelsea Clinton's wedding in 2010.Meanwhile, several Clinton staffers were listed in Epstein's Little Black Book, including Cheryl Mills, Mark Middleton, and Doug Band.Virginia Giuffre, a survivor of Epstein's abuse, has previously claimed Bill Clinton visited Epstein's private isle in the U.S. Virgin Islands.Giuffre said Maxwell and someone named Emmy (presumably Maxwell's former assistant Emmy Tayler) were present for Clinton's trip, along with a pair of "young girls" from New York. They all allegedly stayed in villas outside the main residence. The accusations were revealed in a tranche of court records unsealed last month in Giuffre's now-settled defamation suit against Maxwell.In a conversation with a lawyer, Giuffre said Epstein told her that he had the former president in his pocket."You know, I remember asking Jeffrey what's Bill Clinton doing here [on the island]," Giuffre told the attorney, according to a transcript of their conversation. She said Epstein laughed off her question and replied, "Well, he owes me a favor.""He never told me what favors they were," Giuffre continued. "I never knew. I didn't know if he was serious. It was just a joke."Editor's note: An earlier version of this story included quotes from OK! Magazine about Djerassi's work at the State Department. They have been removed from the piece since The Daily Beast could not confirm those details.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| NY lets voters get absentee ballots due to virus concerns Posted: 20 Aug 2020 09:45 AM PDT  New York will allow voters to request absentee ballots for the general election because of an outbreak — like coronavirus — under a new state law signed Thursday. For weeks, Democrats and voting rights groups had called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign the legislation, which the Democratic-led Legislature passed in late July. Voters were allowed to vote by absentee ballots in the June primary because of virus concerns.
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| My death wouldn't help Putin: Kremlin critic's parting remark Posted: 20 Aug 2020 09:25 AM PDT |
| AP Interview: Ex-official urges transition talks in Belarus Posted: 20 Aug 2020 09:17 AM PDT  As a former culture minister and ambassador to France, Pavel Latushko is the most well-connected member of a new council established by the political opposition in Belarus to facilitate a transition of power amid massive protests challenging the continued rule of the country's authoritarian five-term president. Defying the government he previously served has earned Latushko threats. Latushko, once an associate of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and a member of the political elite, rejects accusations that the Coordination Council is plotting to overthrow the leader of 26 years, arguing that the group is seeking dialogue between the government and protesters.
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| Global Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) Industry Posted: 20 Aug 2020 08:58 AM PDT |
| Trump redoubles vow to withdraw troops from Iraq; eyes prospects for oil deals Posted: 20 Aug 2020 08:40 AM PDT  U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday redoubled his promise to withdraw the few U.S. troops still in Iraq, but said Washington would remain ready to help if neighboring Iran took any hostile action. Speaking during his first meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Trump said he looked forward to the day when U.S. troops could exit the country, but said U.S. businesses were already making "very big oil deals" there. "We'll be leaving shortly," Trump told reporters.
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| Macron and Merkel meet with Turkey, Belarus, COVID on the agenda Posted: 20 Aug 2020 08:32 AM PDT  French President Emmanuel Macron received German Chancellor Angela Merkel at his Mediterranean holiday retreat on Thursday to discuss a long list of burning issues including the coronavirus pandemic, post-election unrest in Belarus and growing tensions with Turkey.
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| Working families enlist grandparents to help with the kids Posted: 20 Aug 2020 08:31 AM PDT  Gone, for now, are the days when retirees Bill and Mary Hill could do whatever they please. The 72-year-old Bill, a former college sports administrator, and 70-year-old Mary, who worked as a nurse practitioner, volunteered to keep Will five days a week and oversee distance learning after their son and daughter-in-law were required to report in person to the school where they teach. Whether students are learning at school or at home, or are not yet school age, more grandparents have jumped into daily caregiver roles.
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| Monsoon rains lash Pakistan, killing 24 and injuring 20 Posted: 20 Aug 2020 08:18 AM PDT  Relentless monsoon rains lashed Pakistan's most populous province overnight and on Thursday, killing 24 people and injuring 18, emergency services said. Most of the deaths were caused by collapsing roofs and walls, according to the emergency services spokesman Muhammad Asghar. Many homes in rural Pakistan are made of sun-baked mud and straw or flimsy cinder bloc construction, he said.
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| Putin's love of poison — a messy and uncertain weapon for assassins — reflects his need for proven uncertainty Posted: 20 Aug 2020 08:12 AM PDT  High-profile critics and rivals of Russian President Vladimir Putin have a tendency to die from poison, something that conveys a specific message.
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| EXPLAINER-What is the U.S. threat to trigger 'snapback' of U.N. sanctions on Iran? Posted: 20 Aug 2020 08:08 AM PDT |
| Record melt: Greenland lost 586 billion tons of ice in 2019 Posted: 20 Aug 2020 08:05 AM PDT  Greenland lost a record amount of ice during an extra warm 2019, with the melt massive enough to cover California in more than four feet (1.25 meters) of water, a new study said. After two years when summer ice melt had been minimal, last summer shattered all records with 586 billion tons (532 billion metric tons) of ice melting, according to satellite measurements reported in a study Thursday. The study showed that in the 20th century, there were many years when Greenland gained ice.
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| Iran says holding UAE boat after fishermen deaths Posted: 20 Aug 2020 08:04 AM PDT  Tehran said Thursday it seized an Emirati boat following a Gulf incident in which two Iranian fishermen died, stoking tensions after the UAE said it would establish ties with Iran's arch-enemy Israel.
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| Trump appeals as judge OKs Manhattan DA getting tax returns Posted: 20 Aug 2020 07:52 AM PDT  As President Donald Trump's lawyers moved swiftly Thursday to appeal a federal judge's ruling that granted Manhattan's top prosecutor access to his tax returns, Trump blasted the long-running quest for his financial records as a "continuation of the most disgusting witch hunt in the history of our country." U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero's ruling echoed his prior decision in the case, upheld last month by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court had returned the case to Marrero's courtroom to give Trump's lawyers a chance to raise other concerns about the subpoena issued by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.
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| Pompeo to visit UN to trigger Iran sanctions 'snapback' Posted: 20 Aug 2020 07:45 AM PDT  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travels to the UN Thursday to activate a controversial mechanism aimed at reimposing international sanctions on Iran, in a disputed move that threatens the Iranian nuclear deal.
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| Pelosi tells fellow Democrats 'it's all riding on Wisconsin' Posted: 20 Aug 2020 07:41 AM PDT  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a stark reminder to Wisconsin Democrats on Thursday about the importance the battleground state plays in the presidential election less than 11 weeks away. "No pressure, it's all riding on Wisconsin," Pelosi told more than 100 Democrats during a virtual meeting tied to the final day of the Democratic National Convention. "No pressure."
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| Global Synthetic Fibers Industry Posted: 20 Aug 2020 07:38 AM PDT |
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