| Encryption software for dissidents could be collateral damage of budget fight Posted: 17 Jul 2020 04:16 PM PDT  The software is widely used in Iran to view U.S.-funded content.
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| U.N.’s top human-rights official gets it right on Venezuela’s abuses — except for one thing | Opinion Posted: 17 Jul 2020 03:56 PM PDT  Two new United Nations reports on human-rights atrocities by Venezuela's dictatorship have gone almost unnoticed amid the news of the COVID-19 pandemic. But they deserve attention, because — except for one major flaw — they are among the most damning indictments of the Venezuelan tyranny I've seen lately.
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| Reality shows shortfalls of Trump's claim to 'best testing' Posted: 17 Jul 2020 02:18 PM PDT  In Pittsburgh, adults who are afraid they've been exposed to the coronavirus are being asked to skip testing if they can quarantine at home for 14 days to help reduce delays and backlogs. "Testing has been a challenge everywhere," says Utah Republican Gov. Gary Herbert. The White House insists it's giving states whatever they need.
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| NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week Posted: 17 Jul 2020 01:57 PM PDT  None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. CLAIM: A photo from this week shows House Speaker Nancy Pelosi huddled with other members of Congress and none are wearing masks. THE FACTS: Social media users making the false claim shared a December photo from The Associated Press to suggest Pelosi and other members of Congress are not following current guidelines for wearing masks and social distancing when meeting.
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| Pentagon report: Turkey sent up to 3,800 fighters to Libya Posted: 17 Jul 2020 01:32 PM PDT  Turkey sent between 3,500 and 3,800 paid Syrian fighters to Libya over the first three months of the year, the U.S. Defense Department's inspector general concluded in a new report, its first to detail Turkish deployments that helped change the course of Libya's war. The report comes as the conflict in oil-rich Libya has escalated into a regional proxy war fueled by foreign powers pouring weapons and mercenaries into the country. The U.S. military has grown increasingly concerned about Russia's growing influence in Libya, where hundreds of Russian mercenaries backed a campaign to capture the capital, Tripoli, in the country's west.
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| The UN wants your air conditioning to stop heating up the planet Posted: 17 Jul 2020 01:06 PM PDT  A U.N. report recommends a number of ways to reduce the environmental damage
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| Can Iraq rein in Shiite militias? What one killing tells us. Posted: 17 Jul 2020 12:40 PM PDT |
| How does COVID-19 affect kids? Science has answers and gaps Posted: 17 Jul 2020 12:32 PM PDT  What role children play in the coronavirus pandemic is the hot-button question of the summer as kids relish their free time while schools labor over how to resume classes. The Trump administration says the science "is very clear," but many doctors who specialize in pediatrics and infectious diseases say much of the evidence is inconclusive. Several studies suggest, but don't prove, that children are less likely to become infected than adults and more likely to have only mild symptoms.
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| Ecuadorian hummingbirds chirp ultrasonic songs of seduction Posted: 17 Jul 2020 11:06 AM PDT  Perched on a flowering shrub on a windy Andean mountainside, the tiny Ecuadorian Hillstar hummingbird chirps songs of seduction that only another bird of its kind can hear. For the first time, scientists have shown that these hummingbirds can sing and hear in pitches beyond the known range of other birds, according to research published Friday in the journal Science Advances. The male's ballad is sung at around 13.4 kilohertz.
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| In Bolivian city, people buy fake - and toxic - virus cure Posted: 17 Jul 2020 11:00 AM PDT  Long lines form every morning in one of the Bolivian cities hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic as desperate people wait to buy small bottles of chlorine dioxide, a toxic bleaching agent that has been falsely touted as a cure for COVID-19 and myriad other diseases. The rush in the city of Cochabamba to buy a disinfectant known to cause harm to those who ingest it comes even after the Bolivian Health Ministry warned of its dangers and said at least five people were poisoned after taking chlorine dioxide in La Paz, the capital. Dr. Antonio Viruez, who is treating the five at a hospital, said one incorrectly believed he had COVID-19 and developed pneumonitis, an inflammation of lung tissue, after taking chlorine dioxide and a medication used to treat parasite infestations.
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| Texas deaths hit record, schools get OK for virtual classes Posted: 17 Jul 2020 10:56 AM PDT  Texas on Friday gave public schools permission to keep campuses closed for more than 5 million students well into the fall as the state scrambles to contain one of the largest resurgences of the coronavirus in the country. California also issued strict guidance that makes it unlikely that many schools will resume in-person instruction this fall, raising the likelihood of empty classrooms in the country's two biggest states despite President Donald Trump's demands that schools welcome back students at the start of the school year. The changes in Texas were announced hours before the state set a new daily record for virus deaths, with 174, and reported more than 10,000 confirmed new cases for a fourth consecutive day.
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| New studies clarify what drugs help, hurt for COVID-19 Posted: 17 Jul 2020 10:39 AM PDT  Fresh studies give more information about what treatments do or don't work for COVID-19, with high-quality methods that give reliable results. British researchers on Friday published their research on the only drug shown to improve survival -- a cheap steroid called dexamethasone. Two other studies found that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine does not help people with only mild symptoms.
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| Rival parties take aim at Germany's Scholz over Wirecard scandal Posted: 17 Jul 2020 09:49 AM PDT  Germany's Social Democrat Finance Minister Olaf Scholz is facing calls from rival parties to account for the regulatory failures that led to the collapse of Wirecard after it emerged he knew of concerns about the company 18 months ago. Scholz, seen as the party's best hope to succeed conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel next year, was informed in February 2019 that investigators were looking in "all directions" when regulators banned short-selling of Wirecard's shares, according to a parliamentary report seen by Reuters. While there is no suggestion that Scholz knew of any malpractice, rival parties have suggested the Social Democrats' (SPD) most prominent politician bears responsibility for regulators' failure to spot problems.
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| Justice Ginsburg says cancer has returned, but won't retire Posted: 17 Jul 2020 09:15 AM PDT  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Friday she is receiving chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer, but has no plans to retire from the Supreme Court. The 87-year-old Ginsburg, who has had four earlier bouts with cancer including pancreatic cancer last year, said her treatment so far has succeeded in reducing lesions on her liver and she will continue chemotherapy sessions every two weeks "to keep my cancer at bay."
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| Nigeria's Zamfara state offers repentant bandits cows for AK-47s Posted: 17 Jul 2020 09:09 AM PDT  Zamfara state's governor uses an original ploy to deal with a recent wave of bandit attacks.
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| 2 men charged in assault on Black man at Indiana lake Posted: 17 Jul 2020 09:05 AM PDT  Monroe County prosecutors charged Sean Purdy with felony criminal confinement, battery resulting in moderate bodily injury and intimidation. Jerry Cox II was charged with felony criminal confinement and battery resulting in moderate bodily injury, as well as two misdemeanors. Warrants have been issued for their arrests, Monroe County Prosecuting Attorney Erika Oliphant said.
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| Zindzi Mandela's family praised for revealing she had Covid-19 Posted: 17 Jul 2020 08:42 AM PDT  President Cyril Ramaphosa says revealing Zindzi Mandela had the virus would encourage acceptance.
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| Minister: Iraq to face severe shortages as river flows drop Posted: 17 Jul 2020 08:27 AM PDT  Iraq's minister of water resources says his country will face severe water shortages if agreements are not forged with neighboring Turkey over Ankara's irrigation and dam projects that have decreased river inflows to Iraq's parched plains. Descending from the mountains of southeast Turkey and coursing through Syria and then Iraq before emptying out in the Persian Gulf, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are Iraq's main water source and essential to for agriculture.
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| Pentagon bans Confederate flag in way to avoid Trump's wrath Posted: 17 Jul 2020 08:17 AM PDT  After weeks of wrangling, the Pentagon is banning displays of the Confederate flag on military installations, in a carefully worded policy that doesn't mention the word ban or that specific flag. The policy, laid out in a memo released Friday, was described by officials as a creative way to bar the flag's display without openly contradicting or angering President Donald Trump, who has defended people's rights to display it. Signed by Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Thursday night, the memo lists the types of flags that may be displayed at military installations.
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| Jamaal Bowman topples US Rep. Engel in NY Democratic primary Posted: 17 Jul 2020 08:13 AM PDT  Former middle school principal Jamaal Bowman has toppled 16-term U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel in New York's Democratic primary in another upset victory for the party's insurgent wing. A political novice who has never held public office before, Bowman, 44, was a progressive African American challenger who said Engel, the 73-year-old chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had lost touch with his economically and racially diverse district. Bowman declared victory in the race on June 24, a day after the primary election.
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| Russia issues travel ban to Kremlin critic Navalny in slander probe Posted: 17 Jul 2020 07:45 AM PDT  Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was barred Friday from leaving Moscow as police carried out a new raid on his offices. Russia's opposition has accused the authorities of cracking down on opponents to President Vladimir Putin after he oversaw a vote this month allowing him to potentially remain in power until 2036. Navalny said he had been questioned by investigators and banned from leaving the capital as part of a new criminal case against him.
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| Vatican indicates support to exhume babies at Irish home Posted: 17 Jul 2020 07:24 AM PDT  The Vatican has indicated its support for a campaign to provide a proper Christian burial for hundreds of babies and toddlers by first exhuming their bodies from the grounds of a Catholic-run Irish home for unwed mothers. The Vatican's ambassador to Ireland, Archbishop Jude Thaddeus Okolo, said in a July 15 letter to the amateur Irish historian behind the campaign that he shared the views of the archbishop of Tuam, Ireland, Michael Neary.
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| Biden's bid touts faith, courts even religious conservatives Posted: 17 Jul 2020 07:11 AM PDT  President Donald Trump's appeal to religious conservatives is a cornerstone of his political identity. Standing backstage next to Biden, Pete Buttigieg asked the lifelong Catholic about the prayer beads and fell into a conversation about loss, family and faith. Biden "often talks about the comfort and meaning that he's drawn from faith," said Buttigieg, Biden's primary rival-turned-endorser.
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| Georgia mask debate ensnares Trump as Kemp battles Atlanta Posted: 17 Jul 2020 06:56 AM PDT  Georgia's governor and the mayor of its largest city accused each other of playing politics Friday amid an escalating fight over face masks intended to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. The battle over masks in a state with rapidly rising cases of COVID-19 erupted into a public fight as Atlanta and more than a dozen other cities and counties defied Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and issued local orders requiring masks be worn in public spaces. The dispute ratcheted up several notches this week, leading to tough talk from both the governor and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Friday, who accused President Donald Trump of violating the city's mask requirement.
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| Ex-envoy fails to secure prisoners in talks with Venezuela's Maduro Posted: 17 Jul 2020 06:49 AM PDT  Former US ambassador Bill Richardson has failed to bring back jailed Americans from Venezuela after meeting President Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington is seeking to topple. The Democratic political figure said he met Thursday with Maduro -- whom, unlike President Donald Trump's administration, he referred to as president -- and earlier spoke to him by telephone. "I am glad we were able to meet with President Maduro to discuss the potential release of the American prisoners and other COVID-19 humanitarian issues," said Richardson, a former US ambassador to the United Nations and governor of New Mexico.
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| Voters to get say in dropping 'plantations' from R.I.'s name Posted: 17 Jul 2020 06:45 AM PDT  Voters will get another chance to strip the words "and Providence Plantations" from Rhode Island's formal name after lawmakers approved a joint resolution to put the question on the November ballot. Although the word "plantations" in Rhode Island's name does not specifically refer to a place where slaves labored, it elicits such imagery, say sponsors of the bill approved Thursday. Metts, who traces his own family history to a Virginia plantation, points out that Rhode Island built its colonial economy on being a leader in the slave trade.
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| To reduce world hunger, governments need to think beyond making food cheap Posted: 17 Jul 2020 05:18 AM PDT  According to a new United Nations report, global rates of hunger and malnutrition are on the rise. The report estimates that in 2019, 690 million people – 8.9% of the world's population – were undernourished. It predicts that this number will exceed 840 million by 2030. If you also include the number of people who the U.N. describes as food insecure, meaning that they have trouble getting access to food, over 2 billion people worldwide are in trouble. This includes people in wealthy, middle-income and low-income countries.The report further confirms that women are more likely to face moderate to severe food insecurity than men, and that little progress has been achieved on this front in the past several years. Overall, its findings warn that eradicating hunger by 2030 – one of the U.N.'s main Sustainable Development Goals – looks increasingly unlikely. COVID-19 has only made matters worse: The report estimates that the unfolding pandemic and its accompanying economic recession will push an additional 83 million to 182 million people into undernourishment. But based on our work serving as independent experts to the U.N. on hunger, access to food and malnutrition, under the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, it's clear to us that the virus is only accelerating existing trends. It is not driving the rising numbers of hungry and food-insecure people. How much should healthy food cost?Experts have debated for years how best to measure hunger and malnutrition. In the past, the U.N. focused almost exclusively on calories – an approach that researchers and advocacy groups criticized as too narrow. This year's report takes a more thoughtful approach that focuses on access to healthy diets. One thing it found is that when governments primarily focused on making sure people had enough calories, they did so by supporting large transnational corporations and by making fatty, sweet and highly-processed foods cheap and accessible.[Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]This perspective raises some important issues about the global political economy of food. As the new report points out, people who live at the current global poverty level of US$1.90 per day cannot feasibly secure access to a healthy diet, even under the most optimistic scenarios. More broadly, the U.N. report addresses one of the longest-running debates in agriculture: What is a fair price for healthy food? One thing everyone agrees on is that a plant-heavy diet is best for human health and the planet. But if prices for fruits and vegetables are too low, then farmers can't make a living, and will grow something more lucrative or quit farming altogether. And costs eventually go up for consumers as the supply dwindles. Conversely, if the price is too high, then most people can't afford healthy food and will resort to eating whatever they can afford – often, cheap processed foods. The role of governmentsFood prices don't just reflect supply and demand. As the report notes, government policies always directly or indirectly influence them. Some countries raise taxes at the border, making imported food more expensive in order to protect local producers and ensure a stable supply of food. Rich countries like the U.S., Canada, and in the EU heavily subsidize their farming sectors. Governments can also spend public money on programs like farmer education or school meals, or invest in better roads and storage facilities. Another option is to grant people living in poverty food vouchers or cash to buy food, or to ensure everyone has a basic income that allows them to cover their fundamental spending. There's a host of ways in which governments can make sure food prices allow producers to make a living and consumers to afford healthy meals. The human cost of cheap foodThe U.N. report focuses on trying to make sure that food is as cheap as possible. This is limited in a number of ways. New research highlights that mostly focusing on cheap prices can promote environmental damage and brutal economic systems. That's because only large corporations can afford to compete in a market committed to cheap food. As our research has shown, today and in the past, people's access to food is usually determined by how much power is concentrated in the hands of the few.One current example is meatpacking plants, which have been coronavirus transmission centers in the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Europe. To keep prices low, people work shoulder-to-shoulder processing meat at an incredible speed. During the pandemic, these conditions have enabled the virus to spread among workers, and outbreaks in factories have then spread the virus to nearby communities. New international standards allow factories to continue to operate, but in a way that protects workers. In our view, governments are not adequately enforcing these safety standards to stop the spread of the virus. Globally, four corporations – Brazil's JBS, Tyson and Cargill in the United States, and Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods – dominate the meat-producing sector. Studies have shown that they are able to lobby and influence government policy in ways that prioritize profit over worker and community safety.Our work has convinced us that the best way for governments to make sure that everyone has access to good food is to view a healthy diet as a human right. This means first understanding who has the most power over food supplies. Ultimately, it means making sure that the health, safety and dignity of people who produce the world's food is a central part of the conversation about the cost of healthy diets.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Fast food is comforting, but in low-income areas it crowds out fresher options * Hidden hunger affects nearly 2 billion worldwide – are solutions in plain sight?Michael Fakhri is the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. This means he is an independent expert working on a volunteer basis under the authority of the UN Human Rights Council.Ntina Tzouvala is a Senior Advisor for the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. This is an independent, unpaid position.
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| Why Congress can't curb Trump's power to commute Stone's sentence and pardon others Posted: 17 Jul 2020 05:17 AM PDT  President Donald Trump recently commuted the sentence of his friend and political ally Roger Stone, meaning Stone remains convicted but does not have to serve prison time. Article II, section 2 of the Constitution grants the president the power "to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment" – which includes reducing or commuting sentences, as well as pardoning people for federal crimes, which can reverse their convictions, or preventing them from being charged in the first place.All but two presidents in U.S. history have issued pardons – and the two who didn't were William Henry Harrison and James Garfield, both of whom died after very short times in office. Trump is not the first president to use the pardon power to remedy what he sees as politically motivated prosecutions of his appointees and allies. But as a former general counsel to the House of Representatives, I believe congressional Democrats can't investigate the president's decision or do anything to reverse it. Pardons and commutations are commonIn December 1992, after losing his reelection bid, George H.W. Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five other officials who had served in the Reagan administration of charges related to the Iran-Contra arms-dealing scandal, in which the U.S. illegally sold weapons to Tehran and sent the proceeds to fund right-wing insurgents in Nicaragua.In his last days in office, Bill Clinton issued 175 pardons and commutations, including to his half brother, a former business partner and Marc Rich, a wealthy financier who fled the U.S. after being indicted for tax evasion. George W. Bush and Barack Obama also issued pardons and commutations to controversial recipients.[Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.]However, most presidents through history, including recently, have focused their pardons on "values and social policy," White House historian Lindsay Chervinsky told The New York Times. One example of that is Gerald Ford's 1974 pardon of former President Richard Nixon, in what he said was an effort to ensure "domestic tranquility," to heal the nation from the rift of Watergate.In response to the Stone commutation, Jack Goldsmith, a conservative legal scholar at Harvard Law School and a former official in George W. Bush's Justice Department, told The New York Times, "This has happened before in a way. But there has been nothing like Trump from a systematic perspective." He noted that 31 of the 36 pardons and commutations Trump has issued have advanced Trump's own personal interests or been brought to his attention by celebrities. A source deep in historyIn 1925, Chief Justice William Howard Taft, himself a former president, explained the source of the president's pardon power: "The King of England, before our Revolution, in the exercise of his prerogative, had always exercised his power to pardon … ordinary crime and misdemeanors." Since at least medieval times in England, the royal prerogative has been a set of powers a monarch can use regardless of opinions or objections from other parts of government. The prerogative is derived from the historic belief in a monarch's divine right to rule. It includes the power to alter, or reverse, criminal punishments.As such, the Supreme Court has held the pardon power to be an "act of grace" entirely within the president's discretion and beyond review by Congress or the courts.That exclusion is so powerful that one Supreme Court ruling declared a pardon "makes [a pardoned person] … a new man." That 1866 decision came in response to a federal law passed after the Civil War that required anyone who wanted to practice law in federal courts to swear an oath that they had never borne arms against the U.S. nor served in the Confederate government. In that case, Augustus Hill Garland, a former Confederate senator, had – like many former Confederate officials – received a full pardon from President Andrew Johnson for his participation in any aspect of the rebellion. As a result, the court ruled, he did not need to swear the oath to be allowed to continue his career as an attorney. The pardons could serve the nation, as Johnson had hoped, and help bring the American people back together after the war.Amid worries that Trump's commutation of Stone's sentence was self-serving, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, New York Democrat Jerry Nadler, has promised to investigate. But it's not clear that Congress can actually do that: In early July, the Supreme Court ruled that the power of Congress to investigate extends only as far as its power to enact legislation. Congress can't limit the president's power to pardon, so I believe it can't investigate his use of it, either.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * The Fed's independence helped it save the US economy in 2008 – the CDC needs the same authority today * Trump and the problem with pardonsStanley M. Brand does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| Taliban make big changes ahead of expected talks with Kabul Posted: 17 Jul 2020 04:57 AM PDT  The Taliban have put the son of the movement's feared founder in charge of their military wing and added several powerful figures to their negotiating team, Taliban officials said. The shake-up, one of the most significant in years, comes ahead of expected talks with Kabul aimed at ending decades of war in Afghanistan. As head of a newly united military wing, 30-year-old Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob brings his father's fiercely uncompromising reputation to the battlefield.
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| SUEZ Asia Publishes 2019 Sustainability Report Posted: 17 Jul 2020 04:55 AM PDT |
| Mayor of Portland to Trump: Get your troops out of the city Posted: 17 Jul 2020 04:00 AM PDT  The mayor of Portland demanded Friday that President Donald Trump remove militarized federal agents he deployed to the city after some detained people on streets far from federal property they were sent to protect. "Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city," Mayor Ted Wheeler said at a news conference. Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said Trump is looking for a confrontation in the hopes of winning political points elsewhere and to serve as a distraction from the coronavirus pandemic, which is causing spiking numbers of infections in Oregon and the nation.
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| China says it's not trying to replace US, won't be bullied Posted: 17 Jul 2020 03:51 AM PDT |
| A successful cover-up Posted: 17 Jul 2020 02:45 AM PDT  This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.The Sphinx has spoken. That tells you how perturbed the taciturn Robert Mueller was last week after President Trump commuted crony Roger Stone's prison sentence. Trump's gift of a "Get out of jail free" card was the crowning act in what is one of the most brazen cover-ups in American history — one that ultimately defeated Mueller, the special counsel who ran the Russia investigation. In a defensive Washington Post op-ed, Mueller complained that when a key figure like Stone "lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of the government's efforts to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable." A jury, Mueller noted, had convicted Stone of lying under oath about his many communications with WikiLeaks and the Russian hackers who stole Democratic Party emails. Several witnesses testified that they heard Stone directly telling an excited Trump about future email releases. Recently, in a public plea to Trump to save him from jail, Stone said, "He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. But I didn't." In other words: I've got the goods on you, Mr. President. Where's my reward for not ratting?He's been rewarded. Had Stone testified truthfully that he served as a conduit between Russian hackers and candidate Trump, Mueller's investigation might have ended very differently. Despite claims that Mueller conducted "a witch hunt," Jeffrey Toobin recently argued in The New Yorker, "his report was, ultimately, a surrender." Mueller didn't dig into Trump's finances and tax returns to find out why he's so fond of Vladimir Putin and Russia. Mueller never demanded that Trump testify, settling for written answers that the special counsel has said contained several falsehoods. That's called perjury. Sooner or later, Trump's financial records will be made public, and perhaps then the mystery will be solved. But the big reveal won't happen until after voters decide whether Trump deserves four more years.More stories from theweek.com Our time of dread Unidentified federal agents in camo and rented minivans are grabbing people off Portland's streets 7 scathing cartoons about the push to reopen schools
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| US law enforcement chief William Barr blasts American firms with China links for 'kowtowing' to Beijing, with Disney and Apple among the targets Posted: 17 Jul 2020 02:30 AM PDT |
| Iran's plan to execute 3 protesters sparks huge backlash Posted: 17 Jul 2020 02:18 AM PDT  The young men are just a few of the recently convicted criminals to face the death sentence, as Iran seemingly tries to scare dissidents into silence.
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| Israel to shut down on weekends in response to virus surge Posted: 17 Jul 2020 02:08 AM PDT  Israel announced sweeping new restrictions on Friday in response to a new surge in coronavirus cases, including weekend closures of many businesses and limiting restaurants to takeout and delivery. The government announced the restrictions after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "interim steps" were needed to avoid another general lockdown. Netanyahu has faced widespread criticism and protests in recent days over his government's handling of the pandemic and the economic fallout from an earlier lockdown.
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| Rev. C.T. Vivian, key civil rights leader, has died at 95 Posted: 17 Jul 2020 01:57 AM PDT  The Rev. C.T. Vivian, an early and key adviser to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who organized pivotal civil rights campaigns and spent decades advocating for justice and equality, died Friday at the age of 95. Vivian began staging sit-ins against segregation in Peoria, Illinois, in the 1940s — a dozen years before lunch-counter protests by college students made national news. Vivian boldly challenged a segregationist sheriff while trying to register Black voters in Selma, Alabama, where hundreds, then thousands, later marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
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| Russia Can’t Afford to Trip Up in the Vaccine Race Posted: 17 Jul 2020 12:03 AM PDT |
| 1 quest for justice helps fuel Black rights fight in France Posted: 16 Jul 2020 11:58 PM PDT  IVRY-SUR-SEINE, France (AP) — Assa Traoré has been fighting for justice ever since her brother Adama died in the custody of French police on his 24th birthday four years ago. "We became soldiers in spite of ourselves," Assa Traoré, whose family is of Malian origin, told The Associated Press this week. The 35-year-old, who gave up her job as a special education teacher in a small Paris suburb to lead a movement demanding justice for her brother, has renewed purpose since George Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police.
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| Israel supporter's dramatic shift shocks establishment Posted: 16 Jul 2020 11:06 PM PDT  An influential American commentator has sent shock waves through the Jewish establishment and Washington policy-making circles by breaking a long-standing taboo: He has endorsed the idea of a democratic entity of Jews and Palestinians living with equal rights between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, arguing that a two-state solution — Israel and Palestine — is no longer possible. In making his case, Peter Beinart challenged a core tenet of Western foreign policy and of discourse among many Jews around the world of needing to ensure the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. Beinart took aim at decades of failed efforts by U.S. and European diplomats, as well as Israeli leaders who he believes have undermined the idea that establishing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel is the best way to peace.
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| Internet disrupted in Iran province as police disperse rally Posted: 16 Jul 2020 10:59 PM PDT |
| UAE Mars mission liftoff on Japan rocket reset for Monday Posted: 16 Jul 2020 10:43 PM PDT  The liftoff of a United Arab Emirates' Mars orbiter, postponed due to bad weather at the launch site in southern Japan, is now set for Monday. The orbiter named Amal, or Hope, is the Arab world's first interplanetary mission. The launch, initially scheduled for Wednesday from the Tanegashima Space Center, has been reset for 6:58 a.m. Monday (2158 GMT Sunday), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the provider of the H-IIA rocket, said Friday.
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| Millions of kids told full return to school in fall unlikely Posted: 16 Jul 2020 10:29 PM PDT  Millions more children in the U.S. learned Friday that they're unlikely to return to classrooms full time in the fall because of the coronavirus pandemic as death tolls reached new highs. In a sign of how the virus is galloping around the globe, the World Health Organization reported nearly a quarter-million new infections in a single day. In the U.S., teams of military medics were deployed in Texas and California to help hospitals deluged by coronavirus patients.
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| Lives Lost: A doctor dubbed Turkey's medical 'Robin Hood' Posted: 16 Jul 2020 10:00 PM PDT  Dr. Murat Dilmener sometimes bent hospital rules in Istanbul to ensure patients without health insurance got the treatment they needed. Dilmener was convinced he was in the right and defended himself at court hearings.
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| Days grow long at nursing homes as virus lockdowns drag on Posted: 16 Jul 2020 10:00 PM PDT  Off quiet hallways, Southern Pines residents pass the time with word-search books or a nap. Life has frozen at this nursing home, walled off for four months by a virus that's zeroed in on the old. "It's really not normal," says Christen Washington, a nurse who handles social services and admissions at Southern Pines.
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| Iowa meth kingpin is 3rd executed by US government this week Posted: 16 Jul 2020 09:46 PM PDT  The U.S. government on Friday put to death an Iowa chemistry student-turned-meth kingpin convicted of killing five people, capping a week in which the Trump administration restored federal executions after a 17-year hiatus. Dustin Honken, 52, who prosecutors said killed key witnesses to stop them from testifying in his drugs case, received a lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. The first in the spate federal executions happened Tuesday, when Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death for killing a family in the 1990s as part of a plot to build a whites-only nation.
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| Analysis: Trump wants a 2016 repeat in a very different year Posted: 16 Jul 2020 09:38 PM PDT  In the summer of 2016, Donald Trump was trailing in the polls. With time running out, he changed up his campaign leadership team, though not his own mercurial behavior. Four years later, and in the midst of another summer slump, Trump is hoping a similar campaign shakeup will help put him on the path to another come-from-behind victory in November, this time against Democrat Joe Biden.
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| Quake hits remote part of Papua New Guinea; no casualties Posted: 16 Jul 2020 08:39 PM PDT |
| Struggling India crosses 1 million coronavirus cases Posted: 16 Jul 2020 06:07 PM PDT  India crossed 1 million coronavirus cases on Friday, third only to the United States and Brazil, prompting concerns about its readiness to confront an inevitable surge that could overwhelm hospitals and test the country's feeble health care system. A surge of 34.956 new cases in the past 24 hours took the national total to 1,003,832. The Health Ministry also reported a record number of 687 deaths for a total of 25,602.
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