🇬🇧 **Almost half of Brits are anti-Muslim, new data reveals**
*RT* - <https://archive.li/QyrFi>

Nearly half of Britons are anti-Muslim, research figures revealed but, according to the survey, the UK isn’t alone. Anti-Islam sentiments are rife across Europe, with negative feelings toward Muslims highest in Finland. According to data from the Pew Research Center, a whopping 62 percent of Finns hold negative views towards Muslims, while 42 percent of Europeans admitted to anti-Muslim sentiments.

In the UK, 45 percent of church-attending Christians say Islam is fundamentally incompatible with British values and culture, as do roughly the same share of non-practicing Christians (47 percent). For those adults with no religious affiliation, just 30 percent say Islam is fundamentally incompatible with their country’s values.

According to the study, the pattern continues on whether there should be restrictions on Muslim women’s dress. Church-goers are more likely than the non-religious to say Muslim women should not be allowed to wear any religious clothing.

The Pew Research Center is a non-partisan fact-tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. To obtain the data for their survey on religious attitudes, Pew conducted surveys among 24,599 adults across 15 countries in Western Europe from April to August, 2017.
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☠ **A glypho by any other name: Bayer to bury Monsanto brand after takeover**
*RT* - <https://archive.li/Y9nIa>

Germany’s pharmaceuticals and chemicals group Bayer will wrap up the $63 billion takeover of US agrochemical giant Monsanto on Thursday, ditching the seed maker’s 117 year-old name. The deal will create the world’s largest maker of seeds and pesticides, with combined sales worth about €20 billion (over $23 billion).

“Bayer will remain the company name. Monsanto will no longer be a company name. The acquired products will retain their brand names and become part of the Bayer portfolio,” the German drugmaker said on Monday, adding that it had received all required approvals from regulatory authorities.

The company launched a €6 billion ($7 billion) rights issue on Sunday, shortly after clearing the last major antitrust hurdle in the US. The merged agrichemical division will be named Bayer Crop Science, according to German business newspaper Handelsblatt which cited “industry sources.”

The Bayer-Monsanto merger has been strongly criticized by environmentalists and farming groups. In a letter to the European Commission before its March approval of the merger, Friends of the Earth Europe said that more than a million people had signed petitions calling on EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager to block “this merger from hell.”

Last month, some 200 people demonstrated against the merger outside the German firm's annual general meeting. Bayer agreed to acquire Monsanto two years ago. It vowed not to take advantage of its market position to forcefully introduce genetically modified crops in Europe against consumers’ will.
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🇸🇾 **Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to visit Kim Jong Un in North Korea, state media says**
🇰🇵 *Fox News* - <https://archive.li/MJ9Un>

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will visit Kim Jong Un in North Korea’s capital, the regime’s state media announced Sunday, in what would be the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said Assad expressed willingness to visit Pyongyang to meet with Kim on May 30 while receiving the credentials for the North Korean ambassador. "I am going to visit the DPRK and meet HE Kim Jong Un," Assad was quoted saying, using the acronym “HE” for “His Excellency.” No other details, including when the possible summit may occur, was released.

Assad was also quoted saying he believed Kim would "achieve the final victory and realize the reunification of Korea without fail." KCNA also reported Assad saying the Syrian government would “fully support all policies and measures of the DPRK leadership.” If the meeting occurred, it would be the first summit meeting by a foreign leader in Pyongyang. Kim has never hosted a meeting with any other foreign heads of state in the country’s capital.

Assad and Kim seem to have a friendly relationship and are often quoted by KCNA exchanging pleasant remarks and compliments to one another, the Wall Street Journal reported. A United Nations report leaked in February revealed investigators found North Korea was shipping more than 40 items to Syria used for ballistic missile and weapons programs between 2012 and 2017.
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🇺🇸 **Construction Begins On San Diego Section Of The Border Wall**
*The Daily Wire* - <https://archive.li/nCZer>

Although approval is still pending on the billions of dollars President Donald Trump needs to build a full border wall along the United States' southern border with Mexico, work on a 15-mile section of "the wall" officially began on Friday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection says they're beginning improvements on a section of the border wall near San Diego, partly in preparation for the existing wall to connect with whatever new wall the Trump Administration has planned, Fox News reports.

The current San Diego border wall was built in the 1990s with material left over from the 1960s and '70s, including Vietnam War-era “recycled scraps of metal and old landing mat steel plates,” the Customs and Border Patrol told Fox. Since the "cross border threat has increased," the wall will get an update over the next several months.

The new wall will be a "bollard-style wall" that is twice as high as the existing wall. CBP is also installing what they call an "anti-climbing plate." “The construction of this new substantial wall will improve overall border security, the safety and effectiveness of Border Patrol agents, the safety of the public, and will enhance the atmosphere for business and commerce in the area,” the Border Patrol said of the project.
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🇺🇸 **Supreme Court rules on narrow grounds for baker who refused to create same-sex couple's wedding cake**
*USA Today* - <http://archive.li/HKGxt>

A divided Supreme Court on Monday absolved a Colorado baker of discrimination for refusing to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

The verdict criticized the state's treatment of Jack Phillips' religious objections to gay marriage, ruling that a civil rights commission was biased against him. As a result, the decision did not resolve whether other opponents of same-sex marriage, such as florists and photographers, can refuse commercial wedding services to gay couples.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the court's 7-2 decision against the same-sex couple, departing from his long history of opinions in favor of gay rights dating back a generation. Included among them was the court's 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide.

During oral argument in December, Kennedy and other conservative justices had expressed concern about the potential effect on other merchants with strong religious objections to same-sex marriage, from chefs to florists.
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🇺🇸 **Dem lawmaker: ‘Looks like Zuckerberg lied to Congress'**
*The Hill* - <https://archive.fo/BZ9nct>

A Democratic congressman hammered Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, following a report that the company is sharing large amounts of its users’ data with other companies.

“Sure looks like Zuckerberg lied to Congress about whether users have ‘complete control’ over who sees our data on Facebook," Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) tweeted on Sunday.

“This needs to be investigated and the people responsible need to be held accountable,” the top Democrat on the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee continued.

Cicilline’s tweet came in response to a Sunday New York Times story that detailed “far-reaching data partnerships” Facebook has established with roughly 60 device manufacturers, including Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry, Microsoft and Samsung over the last decade.

The partnerships allowed device makers to obtain Facebook user data like relationship status, religion and political leanings from users and also allowed for the sharing of the data of users’ Facebook friends.
----------------

🇬🇧 **SEXBOTS 'DANGER' Life-like sex robots could spread STIs, worsen impotence and ‘normalise paedophilia’**
*The Sun* - <http://archive.is/hxo77>

SEX ROBOTS may do more harm than good, leading medics claim.

They warn rising use of “sexbots” could spread sexually-transmitted infections, worsen impotence and normalise “sexual deviancy”.

Fans of the life-like love machines – that sell for up to £11,600 – say they can aid “harm reduction” by offering desperate fellas an outlet.

They claim doll use helps reduce sex crimes against women and children.

But Dr Chantal Cox-George, from St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Professor Susan Bewley, from King’s College London, say there is little evidence this is true.

And raised fears they may make illegal behaviour more socially acceptable.
-------------

🇩🇪 **German president apologizes to gays for decades of injustice**
*AP* - <http://archive.is/pgxZf>

Germany’s president has asked gays for forgiveness for decades of suffering and injustice they endured as a result of repressive laws in Germany in the Nazi era and after World War II.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke Sunday in a ceremony marking the persecution of gays by the Hitler regime.

The dpa news agency quoted Steinmeier as saying that the harsh treatment continued in the post-war era, in both parts of a then-divided Germany, where homosexuality for years remained a criminal offense.

The president says that “this is why I’m asking for forgiveness today, for all the suffering and injustice, and the silence that followed.”

Steinmeier says he wants to reassure “all gays, lesbians and bisexuals, all queers, trans- and intersexuals” that they are protected in today’s Germany.

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🇺🇸 **State Collects $4 Million In Illegal Taxes, Won't Give It Back**
*WND* - <https://archive.li/MxZNs>

In the Nextel case, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court “held that the state collected about $4 million in taxes from Nextel in violation of that state’s constitution. But when the state complained that repaying the illegally collected taxes would hurt the public treasury, the court refused to grant Nextel a refund,” the foundation said.

“Protecting the state treasury is an objective that serves a state as a whole, and is not properly made the burden of a few taxpayers. Yet, as in this case, the burden in many illegal tax cases of protecting constitutional rights frequently falls upon those few taxpayers who pay the most.”

“The power to tax is the power to destroy,” PLF wrote. “Given the magnitude of this power, a state’s interest in raising and controlling revenue is limited by the due process guaranteed to taxpayers under the 14th Amendment.”

“In this case, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania assessed Nextel Communications nearly $4 million state taxes, in violation of the state constitution’s Uniformity Cluase. Nextel sued. … The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held in favor of Nextel insofar as the tax was illegally collected. “But the court failed to address Nextel’s due process claim and it gave Nextel no remedy, i.e., no reimbursement of the illegally collected tax.”

“A taxpayer who remits millions of dollars under an illegal collection scheme cares not whether the illegality derives from federal or state law. Justice – and due process – require a remedy,” PLF said. The organization pointed out that Pennsylvania and Florida, “among others, have been known to repeatedly try to assess illegal taxes “even in light of court rulings striking them down.”
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🇺🇸 **Family of Stoneman Douglas student advocate David Hogg 'swatted' at home**
*Local 10 ABC* - <https://archive.fo/dufI3>

The family of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg was "swatted" Tuesday morning, causing police to respond to their Parkland home.
A call came into the Broward Sheriff's Office claiming a hostage situation at the home in the 7800 block of Northwest 122nd Way.

Coral Springs Fire Rescue arrived at the scene to find there was no hostage situation and the call was a prank.

Hogg was not home at the time of the incident and is currently in Washington, DC with his mother to accept the RFK Human Rights award.

Sky 10 was over the home as units were staged outside as a precaution. BSO responded with multiple crews and a police helicopter.

Hogg said the swatting incident was "evidence of the fact of how many people are trying to stop us from what we're trying to do, which is to stop these kids from dying."

--------------------

🇸🇨 **South Africa’s sharp economic decline a major blow to President Ramaphosa's reforms**
*RT* - <https://archive.li/wgyW2>

South Africa’s national statistical service has revealed the worst quarterly contraction of country's economy in nearly a decade after Cyril Ramaphosa ousted Jacob Zuma from leadership. From January through March, the country’s GDP declined by 2.2 percent against the previous three months, Stats SA said on Tuesday. That’s the biggest drop since the first quarter of 2009, when the economy contracted by 6.1 percent. The current figure is much larger than economists’ projections.

The poor results pose a considerable challenge for the country’s new president, who pledged to provide long-term economic growth. To deliver the goods, Ramaphosa was planning to clean up governance, deal with high unemployment and improve basic services, igniting a wave of optimism dubbed “Ramaphoria.”

According to the statistics office, mining, manufacturing and agriculture were the major areas of decline; while the electricity, construction and trade industries recorded negative growth as well. Following four consecutive quarters of robust growth in 2017, the South African agricultural sector demonstrated the fall of 24.2 percent, the largest in 12 years. The sector was dragged down by decreased production in field crops and horticultural products.

The country’s mining industry is shrinking for the second consecutive quarter with production down 9.9 percent in the first three months of the year. It follows a drop of 4.4 percent in the previous quarter. Decreasing production in gold, platinum group metals, and iron ore reportedly became key factors for the general decline.
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🇺🇸 **On the 500th Day of the Trump Administration, Attorney General Sessions Announces 311 New Assistant United States Attorney Positions**
*DOJ* - <https://archive.fo/99XSW>

Largest Increase in AUSAs in Decades Allocates Prosecutors to Focus on Violent Crime, Civil Enforcement, and Immigration Crimes
Today, on the 500th day of the Trump Administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Justice is taking a dramatic step to increase resources to combat violent crime, enforce our immigration laws, and help roll back the devastating opioid crisis. In the largest increase in decades, the Department of Justice is allocating 311 new Assistant United States Attorneys to assist in priority areas. Those allocations are as follows: 190 violent crime prosecutors, 86 civil enforcement prosecutors, and 35 additional immigration prosecutors. Many of the civil enforcement AUSA’s will support the newly created Prescription Interdiction & Litigation Task Force which targets the opioid crisis at every level of the distribution system.

"Under President Trump's strong leadership, the Department of Justice is going on offense against violent crime, illegal immigration, and the opioid crisis—and today we are sending in reinforcements," said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. "We have a saying in my office that a new federal prosecutor is 'the coin of the realm.' When we can eliminate wasteful spending, one of my first questions to my staff is if we can deploy more prosecutors to where they are needed. I have personally worked to re-purpose existing funds to support this critical mission, and as a former federal prosecutor myself, my expectations could not be higher. These exceptional and talented prosecutors are key leaders in our crime fighting partnership. This addition of new Assistant U.S. Attorney positions represents the largest increase in decades."
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🇺🇸 **Obama Administration Secretly Helped Iran Skirt Financial Sanctions **
*National Review* - <https://tinyurl.com/yb2dspw4>

The Obama administration helped Iran utilize sanctioned oil revenue stranded in a foreign bank account in 2016 while actively misleading Congress about the cooperation, according to the results of a Republican led Senate investigation released Wednesday night. After signing the 2015 nuclear deal, which unfroze Iran’s U.S. accounts in exchange for the regime’s non-proliferation pledge, the Obama administration publicly maintained that all non-nuclear sanctions barring Iran from operating within the U.S. financial system would remain in place.

“Senior U.S. government officials repeatedly testified to Congress that Iranian access to the U.S. financial system was not on the table or part of any deal,” congressional investigators wrote in the report. Despite this pledge to the public and Congress, in February 2016 the administration assisted Tehran in recovering $5.7 billion held in the Bank Muscat in the Persian Gulf state of Oman, according to the report, compiled by the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations. And, according to the report, administration officials continued to misled Congress after the license was issued.

According to the report, the Obama administration’s plan ultimately proved unsuccessful, but in undertaking the effort without informing Congress, officials “misled the American people by saying that Iran was not going to be granted access to the U.S. financial system,” Subcommittee Chairman Rob Portman (R., Ohio), the subcommittee’s chairman, told the Washington Post in an interview. “I think they did it because they were so eager to get an agreement with Iran.”
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🇨🇳 **Facebook Gave Data Access to Chinese Firm Flagged by U.S. Intelligence**
*NYT* - <https://archive.li/yZy5n>

Facebook has data-sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese electronics companies, including a manufacturing giant that has a close relationship with China’s government, the social media company said on Tuesday. The agreements, which date to at least 2010, gave private access to some user data to Huawei, a telecommunications equipment company that has been flagged by American intelligence officials as a national security threat, as well as to Lenovo, Oppo and TCL.

The four partnerships remain in effect, but Facebook officials said in an interview that the company would wind down the Huawei deal by the end of the week. Facebook gave access to the Chinese device makers along with other manufacturers — including Amazon, Apple, BlackBerry and Samsung — whose agreements were disclosed by The New York Times on Sunday.

The deals were part of an effort to push more mobile users onto the social network starting in 2007, before stand-alone Facebook apps worked well on phones. The agreements allowed device makers to offer some Facebook features, such as address books, “like” buttons and status updates.

Facebook officials said the agreements with the Chinese companies allowed them access similar to what was offered to BlackBerry, which could retrieve detailed information on both device users and all of their friends — including religious and political leanings, work and education history and relationship status.
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🇲🇽 **Mexico slaps tariffs on US pork, apples and bourbon**
*CNN* - <https://archive.li/jh6YM>

In retaliation for the Trump administration announcing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Mexico and much of the rest of the world, Mexico Tuesday imposed a series of tariffs against US exports to its market valued at $3 billion. They'll hike the price of products including pork, apples, potatoes, bourbon as well as different types of cheese.

The tariffs range between 15% and 25%, and could raise the price of US goods by that amount, cutting deeply into US exports to its neighbor. "It is necessary and urgent to impose measures equivalent to the measures implemented by" the US, said the statement issued by the Mexican government. Mexico had signaled last week that it intended to retaliate against the US steel and aluminum tariffs.

The tariffs imposed Tuesday will affect just more than 1% of US exports to Mexico. But they'll have a significant impact on the targeted US industries. For example Mexico is the largest market for US pork exports according to the National Pork Producers Council, an industry trade group. It says that 25% of US pork exports last year went to Mexico.

"A 20% tariff eliminates our ability to compete effectively in Mexico," said Jim Heimerl, the trade group's president and a pork producer from Johnstown, Ohio. "This is devastating to my family and pork producing families across the United States."
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🇺🇸 **DOJ watchdog finds James Comey defied authority as FBI director**
*ABC News* - <https://archive.li/B31bg>

The Justice Department's internal watchdog has concluded that James Comey defied authority at times during his tenure as FBI director, according to sources familiar with a draft report on the matter. One source told ABC News that the draft report explicitly used the word "insubordinate" to describe Comey's behavior. Another source agreed with that characterization but could not confirm the use of the term.

In the draft report, Inspector General Michael Horowitz also rebuked former Attorney General Loretta Lynch for her handling of the federal investigation into Hillary Clinton's personal email server, the sources said. On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump complained of "numerous delays" in the release of Horowitz's final report, which is expected to run several hundred pages long and be released in the coming days. The sources who spoke to ABC News were willing or able to address only a portion of the draft report's complete findings.

The draft of Horowitz's wide-ranging report specifically called out Comey for ignoring objections from the Justice Department when he disclosed in a letter to Congress just days before the 2016 presidential election that FBI agents had reopened the Clinton probe, according to sources. Clinton has said that letter doomed her campaign.

Comey has defended his decisions as director, insisting he was trying to protect the FBI from even further criticism and "didn't see that I had a choice." "The honest answer is I screwed up a couple of things, but ... I think given what I knew at the time, these were the decisions that were best calculated to preserve the values of the institutions," Comey told ABC News. "I still think it was the right thing to do."
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🇪🇺 **EU to fine countries €250,000 for EVERY REFUGEE refused entry**
*Express* - <https://archive.li/YNhsz>

The financial penalty, which would see countries who wish to retain control of their own borders fined hundreds of millions of euros, is expected to be unveiled tomorrow. With countries including Hungary refusing to accept quotas of migrants issued by the European Union, the huge financial threat has been introduced to prevent states from choosing who to accept in their countries.

The deliberately high fine of €250,000 per asylum seeker will leave countries with no choice but to accept thousands of migrants - or face huge penalties. Poland, for example, would be forced to pay €1.5billion if they kept their borders closed to the 6,200 migrants on their quota. An EU source revealed: “The size of the contribution may change but the idea is to make it appear like a sanction.” Another added that the penalty would be “hundreds of thousands of euros.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban declared that the EU does not have the authority to fine countries, arguing "the EU is not the Soviet Union." He said: “No one can force anything on us which the Hungarian people do not want.” With the country preparing for a referendum on whether it should accept EU demands on refugee numbers, Mr Orban also warned that migrant quotas increased the threat of terrorism. He said: “There is a link between migrants and terrorism, and these people seek vengeance against European countries.

“Those who are in favour of freedom of movement must support walls and border controls: this is the Hungarian standpoint. “My approach on the migrant situation is completely different from that of the European Commission, and I don't believe that migration can solve demographic and economic difficulties.”
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🇮🇱 ** Mueller was investigating Trump adviser as unregistered agent of Israel, his wife says**
🇺🇸 *The Washington Post via Chicago Tribune* - <http://archive.li/kJRQv>

Special counsel Robert Mueller last summer threatened to charge George Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser to President Donald Trump, with acting as an unregistered agent of Israel, Papadopoulos' wife said Tuesday.

Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos, an Italian lawyer who married Papadapoulos in March, said the special prosecutor's office claimed to have evidence that Papadopoulos had worked on behalf of Israel without registering as a foreign agent while he was serving as an energy consultant before he joined the Trump campaign.

Papadopoulos denied the allegation, she said, but pleaded guilty in October to lying to the FBI about his interactions with two Russians and a London professor who had told him in 2016 that the Russians held Clinton-related emails. He has been cooperating with Mueller's probe.
Simona Papadopoulos, who said her husband was not involved in Russia's efforts to interfere in the White House race, said he agreed to plead guilty as a way to acknowledge missteps with the FBI and to avoid a protracted legal battle.

"I know he doesn't have anything to do with Russia," she said in an interview. "We know he was under scrutiny because of his ties to Israel, not his ties to Russia. So what's this about?"

A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment.
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🇨🇳 ** US screens more staff in China over mystery health issues**
🇺🇸 *AP* - <http://archive.li/7V4at>
A U.S. medical team was screening more Americans who work at the consulate in southern China as the State Department confirmed evacuating a number of government employees who experienced unexplained health issues like those that have hurt U.S. personnel in Cuba and China.

The evacuations of workers in Guangzhou followed medical testing that revealed they might have been affected. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said “a number of individuals” had been brought to the U.S. but didn’t say how many were affected or evacuated. A previous case in Guangzhou, disclosed last month, prompted the tests.

Nauert also said that remaining U.S. government personnel and their families in Guangzhou would also be able to request testing if they “noted concerning symptoms or wanted baseline screening.”

The incidents have raised fears the unexplained issues that started in Cuba in 2016 have expanded. The U.S. government has deemed those incidents “specific attacks” on American workers but hasn’t publicly identified a cause or culprit. Most of the incidents were accompanied by bizarre, unexplained sounds that initially led U.S. investigators to suspect a sonic attack.

Symptoms have included dizziness, headaches and an inability to concentrate. The American government worker who previously was removed from China reported “subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure,” the Guangzhou consulate reported last month.

Security guards outside the Guangzhou consulate on Thursday told reporters to leave the area and not attempt to talk to consulate staff.
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🇺🇸 **Facebook says software bug made millions of users' private posts public**
*The Washington Times* - <https://archive.li/YnxZt>

Facebook says a software bug made some private posts public for as many as 14 million users over several days in May. The problem, which Facebook says it has fixed, is the latest privacy scandal for the world’s largest social media company. The company said on Thursday the bug automatically suggested that users make new posts public, even if they had previously restricted to “friends only” or another private setting.

Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, says the bug did not affect past posts. She added that Facebook is notifying users who posted publicly during the time the bug was active to review their posts. The news follows a recent furor over Facebook’s sharing of user data with device makers, including China’s Huawei.
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🇺🇸 **Virginia National Guard Soldier leads police on a 2 hour chase in a stolen armored vehicle**
*Inside Edition * - <https://archive.li/2Twmw>
A Virginia National Guard soldier led police on a 2 hour chase down an interstate. Joshua Philip Yabut is accused of stealing a M577 armored personnel carrier from Fort Pickett on Tuesday.

"The unit was conducting routine training at Fort Pickett when Yabut drove away in the vehicle," said Cotton Puryear, the Virginia National Guard spokesman.

Yabut drove down Interstate 85 and then north on Interstate 95 in Richmond, police said. The incident was first at 7:50 PM. Around 8 PM, Yabut posted photos and videos of him inside the vehicle on his twitter, <https://archive.li/LCiLH>. The chase came to an end at 10 PM, when Yabut was arrested. He was charged with driving under the influence of drugs, felony eluding the police and felony unauthorized use of a vehicle.
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🇺🇸 **Anthony Bourdain: Celebrity chef dies in apparent suicide aged 61**
*Sky News* - <https://archive.li/kAZ5d>

US celebrity chef and TV host Anthony Bourdain has died in an apparent suicide in a French hotel room. The US network CNN - which hosts Bourdain's Parts Unknown programme - tweeted that the "chef, storyteller and Emmy-winning host" had killed himself. Bourdain, 61, was found unresponsive in his hotel room in the city of Strasbourg, where he was filming an episode of the show, said the channel.

His friend, the chef Eric Ripert, found him. A CNN statement said: "It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain. "His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller.

"His talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much. Our thoughts and prayers are with his daughter and family at this incredibly difficult time." Bourdain's bestselling book, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, became a bestseller in 2000 and launched his TV career. His early work on the Travel Channel won Emmy Awards and in 2013 he moved to news broadcaster CNN and began filming Parts Unknown.
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🇪🇺 **Memes will be banned under new EU copyright law warns campaigners**
*Sky News* - <https://archive.li/un22u>
The EU Copyright Directive intends to protect the intellectual property rights of people who upload their material to the internet. Campaigners are warning that a new copyright law in the EU will require "all content uploaded to the internet to be monitored and potentially deleted if a likeness to existing copyright is protected". This law is a certain provision of the Copyright Directive known as Article 13.

The campaigners are arguing that the copyright protections of Article 13 would damage the sharing of parody content and memes, which, while being original content, are usually derived from other people's original content. The allegations have been rejected by the European Commission.

A European Commission spokesperson has said that "The idea behind our copyright proposals is that people should be able to make a living from their creative ideas."
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🇺🇸 **Indiana man arrested for Boston 'free speech' rally shooting threat.**
*WHTC* - <https://archive.li/VLaid>
Authorities arrested an Indiana man, Eric M. Radulovic, on Friday after a federal charge that he threatened to shoot white attendees at a Boston rally of far right speakers last August. The Boston 'free speech' rally drew thousands of counter-protesters and a massive police presence aimed at averting violence.

Radulovic allegedly posted to 4chan.org the day after the violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and posed as a member of the 'alt right', saying that he would shoot white people at the Boston rally in order to gain sympathy for the alt-right movement. "I'm going to bring a Remington 700 and start shooting Alt-Right guys," Radulovic wrote. "We need sympathy after that landwhale got all the liberals teary eyed, so someone is going to have to make it look as if the left is becoming more violent and radicalized. It's a false flag for sure, but I'll be aiming for the more tanned/dark haired muddied jeans in the crowd so real white won't have to worry."

Radulovic was referring to the death of Heather Heyer, who was hit and killed by a vehicle while protesting the alt right in Charlottesville. The indictment alleges that Radulovic posted this for the purpose of issuing a threat and knowing that it would be interpreted as such.

Radulovic faces up to 5 years in prison if convicted. It is unknown if he has an attorney.
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🇺🇸 **Teacher claims school made him resign for not using a transgender student's preferred name.**
*ABC News* - <https://archive.li/kLflW>
An Indiana orchestra teacher claims his former school forced him to resign after not referring to a transgender student by their preferred name. Brownsburg High School has a policy that teachers must refer to transgender students by their preferred name rather than their birth name. John Kluge, who taught at the school for 4 years disagreed with the policy and wanted to refer to students by their last names.

"I feel the compelled speech of forcing a teacher to take a side on this very highly controversial topic is a violation of our First Amendment rights," Kluge said. Kluge claimed the school told him he must either follow the policy, resign or be fired. He said he submitted a conditional resignation later, but later withdrew the resignation before the deadline. He called his meeting with the administration "very threatening" and "bullying."

"I enjoy being the orchestra teacher at Brownsburg," Kluge wrote in a statement. "It's unfortunate that the administration is not letting me come back and that they are unwilling to continue a reasonable accommodation that most people consider to be very common sense." He went on to ask that the board reconsider his termination.
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🇺🇸 **Denver Uber driver charged who shot passenger last week charged with first-degree murder.**
*Denver Post* - <https://archive.li/UsXBv>
An Uber driver who fatally fired 10 shots into a passenger last week has been charged with first-degree murder after deliberation in the death of a 45 year old man, authorities say.

Michael Hancock, 29, is being held without bond in the Denver city jail in the 2:45 a.m. June 1 shooting of Hyun Kim on southbound Interstate 25 near University Boulevard. The charge was direct filed Thursday in Denver District Court, said Ken Lane, spokesman for Denver District Court.

Hancock declined to give police detectives his side of the story. Ten bullet casings were discovered near Hancock’s vehicle. Kim’s body was found slumped in his car. Hancock's family says he only shot the man in self defence because the passenger was beating him on the head, but Hancock himself has made no statement.

Uber’s company policy, which bars drivers and riders from carrying firearms, applies in Colorado.
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🇦🇹 **Austria's right-wing government plans to shut down seven mosques and expel up to 40 foreign-funded imams in crackdown against Islamist ideology**
*Daily Mail* - <https://archive.li/8kf43>

Austria said today it could expel up to 60 Turkish-funded imams and their families and would shut down seven mosques as part of a crackdown on 'political Islam' that was described as 'just the beginning', triggering fury in Ankara.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the government is shutting a hardline Turkish nationalist mosque in Vienna and dissolving a group called the Arab Religious Community that runs six mosques. His coalition government, an alliance of conservatives and the far right, came to power soon after Europe's migration crisis on promises to prevent another influx and clamp down on benefits for new immigrants and refugees.

In a previous job as minister in charge of integration, Chancellor Kurz oversaw the passing of a tough 'law on Islam' in 2015, which banned foreign funding of religious groups and created a duty for Muslim societies to have 'a positive fundamental view towards (Austria's) state and society'.

'Parallel societies, political Islam and radicalisation have no place in our country,' Kurz told a news conference outlining the government's decisions, which were based on that law.

'This is just the beginning,' far-right Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache added.
-----------------

🇮🇷 **Iran Admits To Facilitating 9/11 Attacks, Report Says**
*The Daily Wire* - <https://archive.li/QEjeT>

For the first time ever, Iranian government officials have admitted to helping facilitate the 9/11 terror attacks that resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000 Americans, the Washington Free Beacon reports.

Mohammad-Javad Larijani, an international affairs assistant in Iran's judiciary, disclosed in Farsi-language remarks broadcast on Iran's state-controlled television that Iranian intelligence officials secretly helped provide the al Qaeda attackers with passage and gave them refuge in the Islamic Republic, according to an English translation published by Al Arabiya.

"Our government agreed not to stamp the passports of some of them because they were on transit flights for two hours, and they were resuming their flights without having their passports stamped. However their movements were under the complete supervision of the Iranian intelligence," Larijani was quoted as saying in the May 30 interview, as reported by Adam Kredo.

The Beacon notes that this is the first time that top Iranian officials have admitted publicly to aiding the Islamic terrorist attack carried out by al Qaeda.

"The Americans took this as evidence of Iran's cooperation with al-Qaeda and viewed the passage of an airplane through Iran's airspace, which had one of the pilots who carried out the attacks and a Hezbollah military leader sitting [next to] him on board, as evidence of direct cooperation with al-Qaeda through the Lebanese Hezbollah," Larijani stated.
-----------------

🌋 **Lava boils away largest lake on Big Island in about 90 minutes**
*SFGATE* - <https://tinyurl.com/yafx2nyx>

In the more than a month since Kilauea erupted, about 7.7 square miles of land reportedly have been blanketed by lava. Lava from Fissure 8 begin pouring into the lake on June 2, turning it into a roiling cauldron. A thick, white plume of water vapor billowed hundreds of feet over the lake. It took only an hour and half for the molten rock to evaporate the entire body of water, which was about 200 feet deep.

"Just outside the gates was the Kapoho Farm Stand, where a woman universally known as Smiley sells papayas, bananas and, for $5, admission to Green Lake, a deep freshwater pool in a crater atop Green Mountain (Pu'u Kapoho). Local legend has it that Jacques Cousteau tried to plumb its depths in a submarine and gave up trying."

Green Lake, also known as Ka Wai a Pele, was about 400 years old. It had been a popular swimming hole for ages. According to legend, Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanos, bathed in the lake when she first came to the island. Now, she has reclaimed it.

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🇰🇵 ** Full text of Trump-Kim signed statement**
🇺🇸 *CNN* - <http://archive.li/UrJa2>
Convinced that the establishment of new US-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building cam promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:

1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.

2. The United States and DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula

4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.

Having acknowledged that the US-DPRK summit -- the first in history -- was an epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un commit to implement the stipulations in the joint statement fully and expeditiously. The United States and the DPRK commit to hold follow-on negotiations, led by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the US-DPRK summit.

President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new US-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and the security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.
-----------------

🇺🇸 ** Credit service shuts down payments on all gun purchases**
*NY Post* - <http://archive.li/NWWgo>
Several gun-related businesses were suddenly — and without warning — disrupted in recent weeks when Intuit stopped processing credit card payments because sales were gun-related, The Post has learned.

Some of the payments stopped didn’t even involve firearms, but simply T-shirts and coffee mugs and gun safety classes, according to small business owners.

Intuit told Campbell it mistakenly believed firearm sales were being made directly to the customers.

Campbell explained the guns were shipped to a local dealer with a federal firearms license who ran the required background checks. Intuit was unmoved.

Campbell said if he knew of Intuit’s stance, he would have simply moved back to his previous processor. “It’s fine, it’s capitalism, and if you don’t want to do business with us, we don’t want to do business with you,” he said.

Intuit did not return several requests for comment.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **After summit, Trump announces halt to US-SKorea ‘war games’**
🇰🇵 *AP* - <https://archive.li/f3gCV>

President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un concluded an extraordinary nuclear summit Tuesday with the U.S. president pledging unspecified “security guarantees” to the North and Kim recommitting to the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

Trump announced that he will be freezing U.S. military “war games” with its ally South Korea while negotiations between the two countries continue. Trump cast the decision as a cost-saving measure, but North Korea has long objected to the drills as a security threat.

After the signing, Trump said he expected to “meet many times” in the future with Kim and, in response to questions, said he “absolutely” would invite Kim to the White House. For his part, Kim hailed the “historic meeting” and said they “decided to leave the past behind.”

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🇲🇰 **‘Northern Macedonia’: Balkan republic to change name after 26-yr dispute with Greece**
🇬🇷 *RT* - <https://archive.li/Iy7BO>

“Macedonia will be called the Republic of Northern Macedonia [Severna Makedonija],” Zoran Zaev, the country’s prime minister, announced Tuesday. The new name will be used both domestically and internationally, with Macedonia making a relevant amendment to its Constitution, Zaev added.

The announcement came after telephone talks with Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras, on Tuesday. Tsipras said that Athens got “a good deal which covers all the preconditions set by the Greek side" as he briefed Greek President, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, on the results of negotiations.

The row between Athens and Skopje has been ongoing since 1991, when Macedonia seceded from Yugoslavia and declared its independence. Greece argued that by calling itself Republic of Macedonia the neighboring country was stating a territorial claim of the Greek northern province, also called Macedonia.

Due to the name dispute, Greece has vetoed all of attempts by Skopje to join both the European Union and NATO. The country was also accepted to the UN in 1993 as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Macedonia’s new name will be put up for a referendum, to be held in autumn. It also has to be ratified by both Macedonian and Greek parliaments.
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🇷🇺 **Russia says Gulag records are ‘kept forever’ amid reports of secretly evaporating archives**
*RT* - <https://archive.li/DbzhC>

A Russian museum studying the history of the infamous Gulag prison camps, which existed in the Soviet Union until 1960, has learned that prisoner data is being evaporated. The story was initially reported by Kommersant on Friday, and immediately picked up by other Russian and Western media outlets.

The records in question are the ‘registration cards’ that contained the personal data of prisoners, including movement between the camps and release date from the forced labor camp. For those who died in the Gulag, the authorities had a special file which was sent for permanent storage to the archive. The survivors’ cards are often the only source of information about their fate for relatives.

One of the Gulag Museum researchers claimed that one such card is missing, according to Russian media reports citing director Roman Romanov. When the authorities of Magadan Region, Russia were asked about the record, a local branch of the internal affairs ministry said the document was destroyed under a confidential 2014 order. The document was reportedly signed by multiple Russian ministries and services, including the interior ministry, justice ministry, and defense ministry, and allowed the destruction of the cards after former convicts turn 80.

The head of the Gulag Museum believes that the case is just an administrative “casus.” “What has happened in Magadan is the first such case in hundreds of similar requests,” he said. In the interview, he said the museum regularly deals with such records and have been provided with all the necessary records before. Political repressions are still a very sensitive topic in Russia. There are no precise figures on how many people were imprisoned in this case. Romanov says that more than 20 million people went through the Gulag.
-----------------

🦉 **Einstein's travel diaries reveal 'shocking' xenophobia**
*The Guardian* - <https://archive.li/9iq7j>

The publication of Albert Einstein’s private diaries detailing his tour of Asia in the 1920s reveals the theoretical physicist and humanitarian icon’s racist attitudes to the people he met on his travels, particularly the Chinese.

Written between October 1922 and March 1923, the diaries see the scientist musing on his travels, science, philosophy and art. In China, the man who famously once described racism as “a disease of white people” describes the “industrious, filthy, obtuse people” he observes. He notes how the “Chinese don’t sit on benches while eating but squat like Europeans do when they relieve themselves out in the leafy woods.

All this occurs quietly and demurely. Even the children are spiritless and look obtuse.” After earlier writing of the “abundance of offspring” and the “fecundity” of the Chinese, he goes on to say: “It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races. For the likes of us the mere thought is unspeakably dreary.”

Ze’ev Rosenkranz, senior editor and assistant director of the Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology, said: “I think a lot of comments strike us as pretty unpleasant – what he says about the Chinese in particular.

“They’re kind of in contrast to the public image of the great humanitarian icon. I think it’s quite a shock to read those and contrast them with his more public statements. They’re more off guard, he didn’t intend them for publication.”
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🇺🇾 **Uruguay marijuana legalization leads to pot shortage**
📉 *CBS News* - <https://archive.li/I4FsZ>

Marijuana went on sale in Uruguay last year under a 2013 law that made it the first nation to legalize a pot market covering the entire chain from plants to purchase. But the country is still working out how to meet demand in its effort to undercut drug traffickers who control the black market.

In Uruguay, even finding legal marijuana can be a chore, as Andrade discovered. The law lets registered users buy as much as 40 grams (1.4 ounces) of marijuana a month at participating pharmacies. But only 14 of the country's estimated 1,200 pharmacies have signed up to sell marijuana. Many balked at the idea of selling the drug, due to low profit margins or fear of being robbed.

Uruguay's 8,750 registered individual growers are allowed to harvest up to 480 grams (a little over a pound) each per year. If all met that figure, it would total about 4 tons per year. There are also 90 users clubs with 2,529 members. If they were to produce their maximum amount, it would come to about another ton annually.

Pharmacy employee Lino Celle says marijuana arrives once a week at his business. "They're supposed to provide us with about 4 kilograms, but only leave us 3," he said. "The system is ridiculous. I live far away, work and study. It's too complicated to buy like this," said a local chef who asked to remain anonymous because he doesn't want to be stigmatized for smoking pot.

Uruguay launched its government-regulated marijuana marketplace in an effort to fight rising homicide and crime rates linked with illicit drug trafficking. Yet drug violence has increased since the law went into the effect. Interior Minister Eduardo Bonomi says fights between criminal gangs, mostly associated with drugs, made up 59 percent of all homicides in the first quarter of 2018, roughly double the percentage in 2012.
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<a:birthdaypepe:447997729491124234>

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🇺🇸 **Trump slaps China with $50 billion in trade tariffs on imports**
🇨🇳 *RT* - <https://archive.li/5umc8>

The White House has announced a 25-percent tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods in what it calls a clampdown on unfair trade practices by Beijing. The US trade representative’s office said it issued a revised China tariff list covering 1,102 separate product categories. The first package of revised tariffs will apply to $34 billion of Chinese imports, on 818 product lines, and will enter into effect from July 6. The second package will target the remaining $16 billion of Chinese goods, on 284 product lines.

“In light of China’s theft of intellectual property and technology and its other unfair trade practices, the US will implement a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion of goods from China that contain industrially significant technologies,” according to the White House statement.

“This includes goods related to China’s Made in China 2025 strategic plan to dominate the emerging high-technology industries that will drive future economic growth for China, but hurt economic growth for the United States and many other countries.”

The step is expected to escalate trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. Earlier, Chinese officials warned of mirror measures, pledging to introduce import tariffs on US goods such as automobiles, aircraft, and soybeans <:soy:415618830056947732> .
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🇨🇦 ** Canadians boycott US products, cancel vacations to America**
🇺🇸 *NY Post* - <http://archive.li/SZ06Y>

Canadians have taken to practicing pocketbook diplomacy in defense of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is caught in a trade war of words with President Trump, by boycotting American goods and canceling vacations to the United States, according to a report.

Shoppers are shunning Kentucky bourbon, California wine and Florida oranges, and avoiding American companies like Starbucks, Walmart and McDonald’s, Canadian network CTV News reported on Wednesday.

On Twitter, hashtags like #BuyCanadian, #BoycottUSProducts and #BoycottUSA are spreading as outrage over Trump’s trade tariffs grows.

An Ottawa man posted a “Trump-free grocery cart” full of products from Canada or from “countries with strong leadership.”

Vacationers said they would be staying up north this summer instead of booking trips to the US.

“F​–k​ you Trump. We just booked a $3,000 vacation to beautiful British Columbia. Happy anniversary to us. #Canadastrong #BuyCanadian #F***Tariffs,” tweeted ​Supreme Leader Lyna.
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🇺🇸 **Trump and family sued by New York attorney general over alleged charity violations**
*The Guardian* - <http://archive.li/xWA2m>

The attorney general of New York state sued the Donald J Trump charitable foundation, President Trump and three of his children on Thursday for violating state charity laws, alleging that the Trumps used charitable assets as “little more than a check book for payments to not-for-profits from Mr Trump” and his companies.

The lawsuit, filed by the attorney general, Barbara Underwood, on the morning of Trump’s 72nd birthday, seeks $2.8m in restitution and penalties from Trump and asks for the distribution of $1m in assets to other charities.

Trump began tweeting soon after the charges were filed, dismissing the lawsuit as the work of “the sleazy New York Democrats” and claiming the foundation “took in $18,800,000 and gave out to charity more money than it took in, $19,200,000”.

Money used to pay those bills came not from Trump but from would-be charitable donors who paid into the foundation, the lawsuit said. “From 1987 through 2008, Mr Trump personally donated funds to support the foundation,” the suit reads. “Since 2008, however, Mr Trump has not contributed any personal funds to the foundation, which instead has been supported by donations from other persons and entities.”
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🇵🇰 ** Leader of Pakistani Taliban killed by U.S. drone strike, Afghanistan says**
🇺🇸 *NBC News* - <http://archive.li/Sz23j>

The Pentagon confirmed U.S. forces had carried out a strike close to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, targeting the leader of a terror group.

Mullah Fazlullah Khorasani was Pakistan's most-wanted militant and blamed for attacks including a 2014 school massacre that killed 132 children and the 2012 shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In March, the U.S. offered a $5 million reward for information on Fazlullah.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish told NBC News that Fazlullah died in a strike in the Marawaya district of the border province of Kunar.

Earlier, Lt. Col Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement that U.S. forces had carried out an airstrike Thursday in Kunar "which targeted a senior leader of a designated terrorist organization."

Fazlullah's death could ease strained ties between Islamabad and Washington even as Afghanistan observes an unprecedented three-day ceasefire with the larger Afghan Taliban.
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🇮🇱 ** Putin, Netanyahu discuss situation near Syria-Israel border**
🇷🇺 *AP* - <https://archive.li/q2IgG>

The Kremlin says President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have discussed the situation along Syria's border with Israel.

The Kremlin said the leaders discussed "the situation in Syria in the context of joint efforts to ensure security around the Syrian-Israeli border" on a Friday call. It added they "voiced readiness to strengthen coordination on Syria, including on combating international terrorism."

The conversation follows up on the two leaders' talks in Moscow and the Israeli defense minister's visit to Russia last month.

The Syrian government's plans to recapture rebel-held areas near the border raised Israeli concerns its other backers besides Russia — Iran and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — could reaffirm their presence there. Israel has warned it wouldn't allow Iran to maintain a military presence in Syria.
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🇵🇭 **Duterte wants to give the public 42,000 free guns**
🇺🇸 NY Post - <https://archive.fo/W5Jl9>

The Philippines has vowed to give free guns to members of the public — so long as they promise to use them to fight drugs and crime.

President Rodrigo Duterte said he’s considering arming 42,000 community leaders, known as barangay captains, after consulting with the police and intelligence agency.

Martin Dino, the interior department undersecretary responsible for barangays, said **handguns would be provided for free**, or private purchases subsidized, but only for those not involved in illegal drugs. Dino said: “The condition is that the barangay captain should fight drugs and crime. If he is conniving with criminals, he could be the one shot.”

But last week he vowed barangays will be provided with the same legal protection as soldiers or police and they “will never go to jail” if they shot suspected criminals in the performance of their duty.
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🇬🇧 **Police charge man over 'Punish a Muslim Day' letters**
*The Guardian* - <http://archive.li/daCNY>

A man has been charged in connection with the investigation into the so-called “Punish A Muslim Day” letters, West Yorkshire police said.
David Parnham, 35, from Lincoln, is accused of 14 offences including one count of soliciting to murder.

He is also charged with two counts of sending a number of letters promoting a “Punish A Muslim Day”, encouraging the commission of one or more of a number of offences.

Parnham further faces five counts of sending a substance with the intention of inducing in a person a belief that it is likely to contain a noxious substance, five counts of sending a number of letters conveying a threat and one count of making a bomb hoax.
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🇮🇹 ** Italy Demands Migrant NGO Boats Leave Mediterranean, Mocks Leftist Crew Members**
*Breitbart* - <http://archive.li/miJ9Z>

Matteo Salvini has demanded the Netherlands recall the Dutch-flagged ‘rescue’ ships of open borders NGOs, declaring that Italy refuses to be complicit in the “illegal immigration business”.

Deputy Prime Minister and interior minister Matteo Salvini hit out at German ‘rescue’ charities operating the Lifeline and the Seefuchs on Saturday morning, noting that the vessels were hanging around the Libyan coast, “waiting to pick up their next load of human” brought to sea by criminal and sometimes terror-linked people-smugglers.

“[The NGOs] know that Italy no longer wants to be complicit in the business of illegal immigration, and therefore they will have to find other, non-Italian ports to go to,” he wrote on Facebook.

“As a [government] minister and a father, they can attack me and threaten me as much as they want, but I will not give up and I do this for the good of all.”

Italian transport minister Danilo Toninelli backed the populist Lega leader’s message on Twitter, calling on the Netherlands to recall the vessels, which he accused of being “in violation of the code of conduct” for ‘rescue’ boats on the basis that their insufficient staffing and equipment “could endanger lives”.
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🇺🇸 (Allegedly) **XXXTENTACION
DEAD AT 20 ...
SHOT IN S. FLORIDA**
💩 *TMZ* - <http://archive.li/virb1>

2:40 PM PT -- Broward Co. Sheriff's Dept. says XXXTentacion has been pronounced dead.

According to the dispatch call the suspects were described as 2 black males wearing hoodies, and the shooter was wearing a red mask.

The car has been confirmed as a black Dodge Journey, with dark tint and black wheels.

2:14 PM PT -- Witnesses told cops a Louis Vuitton bag was taken from XXX's vehicle.

1:57 PM PT -- Additional dispatch audio has revealed XXX was transported as a "Level 1" trauma patient ... dispatchers described him as comatose.

1:48 PM PT -- According to dispatch audio -- the incident was a possible drive-by -- dispatchers named several possible getaway vehicles including a black Dodge Journey, Chevy Tahoe and a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

1:35 PM PT -- The Broward Co. Fire Dept. tells us XXX has been rushed to a hospital. Witnesses say they heard multiple shots fired. His condition is unknown at this point.
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🇲🇽 **113 Politicians Have Been Killed Ahead Of Mexico’s Election. There Are Still Two Weeks To Go. —And That’s a Good Thing**
🇺🇸 B*zzF**d - <https://archive.fo/miSQ6>

At least 113 candidates, pre-candidates, and current and former politicians have been killed and 300 more have suffered some form of aggression since September, according to Etellekt, a Mexico City–based public policy consultancy. Even the government’s tally — 34, which considers only candidates — pushes this particular death toll to nearly four per month.

Astonishing as these numbers are, they only tell part of the story: There are hundreds of candidates who have backed out of their races out of fear for their safety, and many others who have curbed their campaign activities. This poses a significant challenge to Mexico’s relatively young democracy, already crippled by systemic corruption and widespread impunity.

The attacks have been brazen. Last month, several commandos went around Ignacio Zaragoza, a town of less than 7,000 people about 200 miles southwest of El Paso, Texas, burning houses and cars belonging to several local candidates. They killed Liliana García, who was running for town councilor. In a video circulating on social media, a large plume of smoke is seen coming out of a building in broad daylight while a woman weeps in the background. In another, rapid gunfire is heard on an empty street.

Homicides reached a record high in 2017, a foreseeable outcome after several years marked by mass disappearances and massacres committed by state forces alongside ubiquitous drug violence. Despite this, the ruling PRI said no corner of Mexico has become off-limits.
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🇬🇧 **Quilliam receives multi-million-dollar compensation for ‘anti-Muslim extremist’ claim by SPLC**
*RT* - <https://archive.li/tOiYX>

The Southern Poverty Law Center issued an apology on Monday to a UK-based think tank that it previously described as “anti-Muslim extremists.” The Quilliam Foundation will also receive a $3.375-million settlement from the center. Offering its “sincerest apology,” the SPLC said in a statement that it was sorry to the Quilliam Foundation and its founder Maajid Nawaz for including them in its publication ‘A Journalist’s Manual: Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.’

The center said that it was their “opinion at the time that the Field Guide was published that their inclusion was warranted.” “But after getting a deeper understanding of their views and after hearing from others for whom we have great respect, we realize that we were simply wrong to have included Mr Nawaz and Quilliam in the Field Guide in the first place,” the statement added.

Set up by former Islamist Maajid Nawaz in 2008, Quilliam looks to counter extremist ideology, particularly Islamism. It also ostensibly aims to advise government policy on the matter, advocating nuanced policies on Muslims living in Britain and empowering moderate Muslims, while countering far-right narratives.

Commenting on the result, Nawaz said: “With the help of everyone who contributed to our litigation fund, we were able to fight back against the regressive Left and show them that moderate Muslims will not be silenced. “We will continue to combat extremists by defying Muslim stereotypes, calling out fundamentalism in our own communities, and speaking out against anti-Muslim hate.”
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🇺🇸 **Firefighters accused of making pornography at Akron, Ohio, fire station**
*USA Today* - <https://archive.li/sEz5S>

Two Ohio firefighters have been suspended after allegedly making pornographic videos at a firehouse. Akron officials say Lt. Arthur Dean and Provisional Lt. Deann Eller were both placed on administrative leave on Monday while the city launched an investigation into the matter.

According to local media, the suspensions came after steamy footage turned up online, leading to a tip that the pair allegedly had produced the porn at a fire station. At a news conference, the Akron Beacon-Journal reported, the city’s fire chief, Clarence Tucker, wouldn’t say which station might have served as the backdrop for the porn.

“The job of an Akron firefighter is about selfless service to the community. The job requires running into burning buildings, rescuing trapped victims, and administering lifesaving care to people in their darkest hour,” Tucker said, according to Ohio TV station WKYC. “These distressing allegations bring unwelcome dishonor and embarrassment to our department and the city of Akron and unfairly discredit the reputation of other Akron firefighters. I know this department, and this is not who we are.”
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🇺🇸 ** West Point grad who posed with 'Communism will win' in cap discharged**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.li/CMs8s>

The West Point graduate, who last year posed in a picture holding a cap that had “Communism will win” written inside, is officially out of the U.S. Army with an other-than-honorable discharge.

Spenser Rapone rocked the military community last year after his social media posts were revealed, showing him wearing a Che Guevara shirt underneath his military uniform.

He is no longer part of the U.S. military after top brass at Fort Drum’s 10th Mountain Division accepted his resignation Monday after an earlier warning for “conduct unbecoming of an officer.” He’s leaving the military with an other-than-honorable discharge.

Army officials condemned the cadet last year and opened an investigation into his social media activity. “Second Lieutenant Rapone’s actions in no way reflect the values of the U.S. Military Academy or the U.S. Army,” an Army statement read.

His open advocacy of communism attracted the criticism from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio who then urged the U.S. military to dismiss Rapone for supporting the country’s enemies.

He also remains committed to the far-left causes, saying he considers himself “a revolutionary socialist” and urged others to join him in his revolution,

“I would encourage all soldiers who have a conscience to lay down their arms and join me and so many others who are willing to stop serving the agents of imperialism and join us in a revolutionary movement,” he said.

Rubio cheered the departure of Rapone. “While in uniform, Spenser Rapone advocated for communism and political violence, and expressed support and sympathy for enemies of the United States,” the Senator said on Monday. “I’m glad to see that they have given him an ‘other-than-honorable’ discharge.”
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<:ancap:280811320541052940> **Americans own 40 percent of world's firearms: study**
*Yahoo News* - <https://archive.li/rtrhy>

Americans make up only four percent of the global population but they own 40 percent of the world's firearms, a new study said Monday.

There are more than one billion firearms in the world but 85 percent of those are in the hands of civilians, with the remainder held by law enforcement and the military, according to the Small Arms Survey.

The survey, produced by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, says it bases its estimates based on multiple sources, including civilian firearms registration data from 133 countries and territories and survey results in 56 countries.

Of the 857 million guns owned by civilians, 393 million are in the United States - more than all of the firearms held by ordinary citizens in the other top 25 countries combined.
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **US quits UN human rights council**
*BBC* - <https://archive.fo/Ca4to>

The US has pulled out of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the US UN envoy Nikki Haley made the announcement at a joint news conference in Washington.

Ms Haley last year accused the council of "chronic anti-Israel bias" and said the US was reviewing its membership.

Formed in 2006, the council has been criticised for allowing countries with questionable human rights records to be members.
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💩 **What's The Perfect Gift For The #TrumpCuck In Your Life?**
*BuzzFeed* - <http://archive.li/SR1Wa>

Who Would Be In Your #Trumpcuck Cabinet?

Which is Your Most Beloved Trump Product?

What Would Your Eat While Being Cucked Out?
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🇪🇸 **Spain's new government to remove General Franco's remains from mausoleum**
*Telegraph* - <https://archive.fo/fE3Ke>

The remains of fascist dictator Francisco Franco could soon be removed from a state-funded mausoleum under a plan by Spain's new socialist government to transform the monument into a place to remember the civil war rather than glorify the dictatorship.

"We don't have a date yet, but the government will do it," Pedro Sanchez, the new prime minister, said late on Monday night during his first television interview since being sworn in on June 2 after toppling his conservative predecessor Mariano Rajoy in a confidence vote.

He recalled that a non-binding motion approved last year in parliament called for Franco's remains to be exhumed from the massive Valley of the Fallen mausoleum some 30 miles northwest of Madrid and the site turned into a "memorial of the victims of fascism".

Earlier on Monday Socialist party spokesman Oscar Puente said the mausoleum should be transformed into a "place of reconciliation, of memory, for all Spaniards, and not of apology for the dictatorship."
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🇺🇸 ** Verizon and AT&T will stop selling your phone’s location to data brokers**
*ARS Technica* - <http://archive.is/uiqUT>

Verizon and AT&T have promised to stop selling their mobile customers' location information to third-party data brokers following a security problem that leaked the real-time location of US cell phone users.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) recently urged all four major carriers to stop the practice, and today he published responses he received from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile USA, and Sprint.

Wyden's statement praised Verizon for "taking quick action to protect its customers' privacy and security," but he criticized the other carriers for not making the same promise.

"After my investigation and follow-up reports revealed that middlemen are selling Americans' location to the highest bidder without their consent or making it available on insecure Web portals, Verizon did the responsible thing and promptly announced it was cutting these companies off," Wyden said. "In contrast, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint seem content to continuing to sell their customers' private information to these shady middle men, Americans' privacy be damned."

AT&T changed its stance shortly after Wyden's statement. "Our top priority is to protect our customers' information, and, to that end, we will be ending our work with aggregators for these services as soon as practical in a way that preserves important, potential lifesaving services like emergency roadside assistance," AT&T said in a statement to Ars.

Sen. Wyden recognized AT&T's change on Twitter and called on T-Mobile and Sprint to follow suit.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Antifa Spreads List Of ICE Agents Compiled Using LinkedIn And Blasts It Over Twitter**
*Daily Caller* - <http://archive.is/c90fK>

Antifa, a violent, so-called anti-fascist group, tweeted out a list of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ identities.

The Twitter account “nebraska antifa” sent out a tweet to its followers on Tuesday that linked to the personal information of ICE officers compiled from information found on LinkedIn.

A Twitter user who goes by Sam Lavigne compiled the list of ICE agents’ identities, titles and locations. In a tweet on Tuesday morning he says he “scraped LinkedIn for people that work for ICE.”

The Medium link in Lavigne’s was no longer available as of Tuesday night.

While the original post of ICE personal information has been removed, the Antifa Twitter account linked to an archived post, where viewers can access the Lavigne’s original database.
-----------------

🇨🇳 **China cuts US investments by 92% amid escalating trade war**
🇺🇸 *RT* - <https://archive.li/cWU8x>

The US market saw a significant plunge in investment from China in the first five months of the year amid a growing trade row between the world's two largest economies.

Chinese investments totaled $1.8 billion from January through May, representing a 92-percent drop against the same period a year ago. That’s the lowest level in seven years, according to the latest report by Rhodium Group, a research provider that tracks Chinese foreign investment.

Chinese corporations that had been pumping cash into the US to cement ties over a long period have cut their investments in recent years. In 2017, investments declined by 36 percent to $29.7 billion from $46.5 billion during the previous year.

“The more confrontational approach of the Trump administration toward economic relations with China has cast some doubt, in these companies' minds, about their position here,” said Thilo Hanemann, a director at Rhodium Group, as quoted by CNN Money.

The plunge was reportedly triggered by an ongoing trade conflict between Washington and Beijing, in which the US administration has taken an aggressive stance towards Chinese trade policies. Last week, the White House introduced 25-percent tariffs targeting $50 billion of Chinese imports to the country. US President Donald Trump threatened to hit another $200-billion of Chinese goods with an extra 10-percent tariff after Beijing retaliated.
-----------------

🇮🇱 ** Wife of Israel prime minister charged with fraud over alleged misuse of public funds**
*Fox News* - <http://archive.li/w60QK>

Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Thursday was charged with a series of crimes, including fraud, over alleged misuse of public funds.

Netanyahu, 59, was also charged with breach of trust in connection with the "Prepared Food Affair," the Jerusalem Post reported.

Netanyahu was accused of misusing about $100,000 of public funds for catering services at the prime minister's Jerusalem home while falsely stating there were no cooks on staff, the justice ministry stated.

Sara Netanyahu acted "to circumvent the rules and conditions" governing the official residence "in order to fraudulently obtain state funding for various expenses for the accused and her family that were not supposed to be financed in this manner," the indictment said.

If convicted, she could face a maximum sentence of five years behind bars. It was not immediately clear when her trial would start.
-----------------

🇷🇺 **'Ten times cheaper': Russian space company testing iodine rocket engine**
*RT* - <https://archive.li/nBZR7>

Russian spacecraft manufacturer Energia is developing an electric propulsion rocket engine which runs on ‘pure’ iodine. The new thruster can make rockets smaller, lighter and cheaper.

Engineers have patented a method of using iodine for electric-powered spacecraft propulsion, the Energia Space and Rocket Corporation said on Thursday. The company, based in the Moscow region, is the nation’s main builder of space rockets and components for the International Space Station (ISS). It said the idea to use ‘pure’ iodine for space exploration was first proposed in the 90s, but thorough research started only several years ago.

Solid iodine is easy to store, can be quickly converted into gas, and is cost-effective, compared to xenon which typically serves as propellant in electric-powered propulsion engines. Switching to iodine can potentially make the process “ten times cheaper’, while the engine itself will be smaller and less heavy, the company said. Furthermore, xenon-run engines are incapable of long-distance flights, like going to the Moon.

“Ground tests will commence in late June,” told Pavel Scherbina, one of engineers leading the project. The engine’s testing in space is planned for 2022, both onboard the ISS and the ‘Progress’ cargo ship. According to Energia, the new engines may be used in operating telecom satellites, and delivering humans and cargo in deep space.
-----------------

🇺🇸 ** Supreme Court says warrant necessary for phone location data in win for privacy**
*C|Net* - <http://archive.li/iniDe>

In a 5-4 decision on Friday the justices decided that police need warrants to gather phone location data as evidence for trials. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the Sixth Circuit court's decision.

Carpenter v. United States is the first case about phone location data that the Supreme Court has ruled on. That makes it a landmark decision regarding how law enforcement agencies can use technology as they build cases. The court heard arguments in the case on Nov. 29.

In the Supreme Court's ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the government's searches of Carpenter's phone records were considered a Fourth Amendment search.

"The Government's position fails to contend with the seismic shifts in digital technology that made possible the tracking of not only Carpenter's location but also everyone else's, not for a short period but for years and years," he wrote.

Roberts pointed out that allowing government access to historical GPS data infringes on Carpenter's Fourth Amendment protections and expectation of privacy, by providing law enforcement with an "all-encompassing record" of his whereabouts. He added that historical GPS data presents an "even greater privacy risk" than real-time GPS monitoring.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Rhode Island Senate Passes Bill Requiring Presidential Candidates To Reveal Tax Information, Or Be Left Off Election Ballot**
*The Daily Wire* - <https://archive.li/8cLUV>

On Tuesday, the Rhode Island state Senate voted overwhelmingly (34-3) in favor of a bill (2018-S 2612A) that would require presidential candidates to release their tax records in order to be allowed on the state’s primary and general election ballots. The bill will now head to the Rhode Island House of Representatives.

Senator Gayle Goldin (D) released a statement regarding the bill, which she sponsored:

*Especially considering his vast real estate holdings and the wide reach of his family’s companies and assets, President Trump’s lack of transparency raises significant questions about how he may be personally benefiting from the tax overhaul he promoted and signed. We could not help but question every carve-out for businesses, like those for real estate holdings and allowing the PGA to maintain its nonprofit status, and wonder what his personal benefit is going to be.*

According to Ballotpedia, the Rhode Island House of Representatives is comprised of 64 Democrats and 11 Republicans. If political affiliation is any indication, the House will likely vote to pass the legislation. The state Senate, which voted 34-3 in favor of the bill, is comprised of 33 Democrats and 4 Republicans.
-----------------

🇮🇹 **Lifelike reconstruction of Julius Caesar reveals extraordinary head**
*RT* - <https://archive.li/xSFQn>

A new 3D reconstruction of Julius Caesar’s head gives unprecedented insight into what the famous Roman general looked like all those years ago - including the bizarre proportions of his cranium.

The bust was revealed at an event to promote a new book on Caesar by archaeologist Tom Buijtendorp at at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, the Netherlands, on Friday. Buijtendorp came up with the idea of recreating Caesar’s head based on a marble bust of the ancient Roman leader that’s held at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden.

Archaeologist and anthropologist Maja d’Hollosy brought the bust to life, using a 3D scan of the marble piece before drawing on other existing portraits of Caesar to fill in gaps where the marble was damaged. Caesar was then given a realistic-looking face using silicon and clay.

The result is a remarkably lifelike depiction of Caesar, down to the unusual skull shape said to have been the result of his difficult birth. “So he has a crazy bulge on his head,” Buijtendorp said of his skull, HLN reports. “A doctor said that such a thing occurs in a heavy delivery. You do not invent that as an artist.”

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🇰🇷 **North Korea erasing most anti-US propaganda**
*NY Post* - <https://archive.fo/XVtor>

The North Korean government is erasing much of its anti-U.S. propaganda following dictator Kim Jong-un’s forays onto the world stage.

Gone are the posters depicting the U.S. as a “rotten, diseased, pirate nation” and promising “merciless revenge” on American forces for an imagined attack on the totalitarian country.

In their place are cheery messages touting praising the prospects for Korean reunification and the declaration Kim signed in April with South Korean President Moon Jae-in promising “lasting peace,” according to reports.

“All the anti-American posters I usually see around Kim Il-sung Square and at shops, they’ve all just gone,” Rowan Beard, a tour manager at Young Pioneer Tours, told Reuters. “In five years working in North Korea, I’ve never seen them completely disappear before.”

Infamous posters and postcards showing North Korean missiles on their way to Washington are a thing of the past. Also removed are the anti-American trinkets that used to be sold to tourists as souvenirs. In their place are items showing themes of Korean reunification.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Horrifying cop bodycam shows officers shooting dog & hitting 9yo girl**
*RT* - <https://archive.li/qJYed>

Police bodycam footage showing a Wichita officer firing at a family dog and injuring a 9-year-old girl with bullet fragments has been released. The child can be heard screaming as she is hit. The incident happened in December 2017, when police responded to a 911 call made by Danielle Maples after her husband threatened suicide.

Police officer Dexter Betts entered the home where the couple’s four children were sitting in the living room along with the family dog. The bodycam footage shows Betts in the living room where he says, “we got a dog inside here, too,” before a dog appears on screen moving and barking.Betts then fired at the bull terrier.

One of the two bullets ricocheted off the floor and fragments hit the 9 year-old girl, sitting just behind the pet, above her eye. “Ow! Ow! Ow, you hurt my eye! Ow! Ow!” the girl can be heard screaming. Betts tells the children to get out and can be heard telling someone over the police radio that the “dog inside attacked us.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KMwnIhF438

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🇹🇷 ** Turkey's Erdogan victorious in election that grants him unprecedented power**
*CNN* - <https://archive.li/6e5em>

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has emerged victorious in a high-stakes election, seeing off the most serious challenge yet to his political dominance and tightening his grip on the nation he has ruled for 15 years.

Defeating the twin threats of a reinvigorated opposition and a weakened currency, Erdogan declared himself the winner even before official results were confirmed.

With 97.7% of the votes counted, Sadi Guven, chief of Turkey's Supreme Election Board, said Erdogan had won an absolute majority, avoiding a runoff against his principal challenger, Muharrem Ince. State media put Erdogan on 52.5%, well ahead of Ince on 31%.

"The winners of the June 24 elections are Turkey, the Turkish nation, sufferers of our region and all oppressed (people) in the world," Erdogan said in a victory address from a balcony at the AKP's offices in the capital Ankara in the early hours of Monday morning.

The results were a blow to Ince and his Republican People's Party, known as the CHP, who ran a spirited campaign that threatened to force Erdogan into a damaging runoff and deny his party control of parliament.
-----------------

🇨🇳 **Spying doves: China launches birdlike surveillance drones**
*RT* - <https://archive.li/uP7UH>

A flock of pretty birds gliding through the sky may conceal a high-tech surveillance drone filming your every move, the South China Morning Post reported on Sunday. The program, code-named ‘Dove,’ has already spread across China with more than 30 military and government agencies deploying the birdlike drones and program-linked devices in at least five provinces in recent years.

The Doves also cover the contentious Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China’s far west, home to a predominantly-Muslim Uyghur population. The region has long been a cause of concern for the Chinese government due to separatist sentiments.

The drones, weighing not much more than their real prototypes and equipped with a high-definition camera and a GPS antenna, flap their wings mimicking the moves of real birds with almost perfect precision. They can even mix with a flock and go unnoticed by them, as well as by sheep, which are easily spooked, the Morning Post says. However, they cannot cover large distances with a time span of 30 minutes at speeds of up to 40kph (25mph).

China is not the first country to develop birdlike drones. In 2011, Germany’s Festo Corporation developed the SmartBird – a drone inspired by the herring gull. SmartBird has not been commercialized, but another rather realistic French-designed bionic bird is available for sale. Unlike the Chinese Doves, there has been no indication that these drones will be used by the military.
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🇲🇽 **MEXICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE CALLS MASS MIGRATION TO US A ‘HUMAN RIGHT’**
*Daily Caller* - <http://archive.is/SfiXb>

Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) declared mass immigration to the United States a “human right” for all North Americans during a speech Tuesday.

“And soon, very soon — after the victory of our movement — we will defend all the migrants in the American continent and all the migrants in the world,” Obrador said, adding that immigrants “must leave their towns and find a life in the United States.”

He then declared migration “a human right we will defend,” eluniversal.com reports.

While the election is not until July 1, Obrador is by far the frontrunner.
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🇨🇳 ** China says United States domestic opioid market the crux of crisis**
🇺🇸 *Reuters* - <http://archive.li/lLYgc>

China’s drug control agency on Monday said the United States should do more to cut its demand for opioids to tackle the use of synthetic drug fentanyl, but it vowed to step up cooperation after Chinese production of the substance had been blamed for fuelling the U.S. opioid crisis.

A year-long congressional probe into the use of fentanyl in the United States found that the substance could easily be bought online from Chinese “labs” and mailed to the United States due to gaps in oversight in the U.S. Postal Service.

“China’s drug control agencies, now and in the years to come, will place greater emphasis on drug control cooperation between China and the United States,” Liu Yuejin, deputy head of China’s National Narcotics Commission, told a news conference.

“But I believe that to resolve this the more important issue is for the United States to strive to reduce and compress the great demand and drug consumption markets of opioids,” he said.

While China accepts that some new psychoactive substances, including fentanyl, manufactured in China are sold in the United States, the substances are not yet readily abused and trafficked in China itself, he said.
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🇺🇸 **Dem lawmaker introduces bill to abolish ICE**
*The Hill* - <https://archive.fo/89IOQ>

A Democratic lawmaker on Monday introduced legislation to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), citing the Trump administration's handling of the agency.

"From conducting raids at garden centers, and meatpacking plants, to breaking up families at churches and schools, ICE is tearing apart families and ripping the moral fabric of our nation," Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, President Trump and his team of white nationalists, including Stephen Miller, have so misused ICE that the agency can no longer accomplish its goals effectively," he continued.

Pocan introduced the measure after traveling to the southern border last week.

"During my trip to the southern border, it was clear that ICE, and its actions of hunting down and tearing apart families, has wreaked havoc on far too many people," he said.

Pocan is one of several congressional Democrats, including Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), to call for abolishing ICE.
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **Supreme Court rules for Trump in challenge to his administration's travel ban**
*CNBC* - <http://archive.is/2ZRcY>

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of President Donald Trump in Trump v. Hawaii, the controversial case regarding concerning Trump's September order to restrict travel to the U.S. for citizens of several majority Muslim countries.

In the 5-4 opinion penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court found that Trump's immigration restriction fell "squarely" within the president's authority. The court rejected claims that the ban was motivated by religious hostility.

"The [order] is expressly premised on legitimate purposes: preventing entry of nationals who cannot be adequately vetted and inducing other nations to improve their practices," Roberts wrote. "The text says nothing about religion."

The case has been central to the Trump administration's immigration policy, presenting a key test of the president's campaign promise to restrict immigration and secure America's borders.
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🇺🇸 ** Appeals court limits once-nationwide sanctuary cities injunction to Chicago**
*Chicago Sun-Times* - <http://archive.li/PSaRJ>

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals limited to Chicago what had once been a nationwide injunction blocking Sessions from applying new conditions to grant money as he tries to force cities to cooperate with immigration authorities.

The limitation will be in effect until the full appeals court can weigh in on whether the injunction should apply nationwide, according to the court’s order. Arguments are set for Sept. 6.

U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber handed down the injunction last September. The grant at issue is the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, used by local governments for law enforcement needs like police cruisers, body cameras and community programs aimed at reducing violence.

Leinenweber’s ruling stopped Sessions from attaching two new conditions to the grant. One of them would require the city to give the feds, when requested, a 48-hour heads up of the scheduled release date and time “of an alien in the jurisdiction’s custody.”

Another requires federal access to “any correctional or detention facility in order to meet with an alien … and inquire as to his or her right to be or remain in the United States.”
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🇺🇸 **Federal Judge Orders Migrant Family Reunification Within 30 Days**
*The Daily Caller* - <https://archive.li/1CMSi>

A federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration to end its migrant family separation policy within 30 days late Tuesday.

U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw of San Diego issued the preliminary injunction, finding the practice likely violates the Constitution. The decision is not a ruling on the merits of the dispute.

“Asylum seekers like Ms. L. and many other class members may be fleeing persecution and are entitled to careful consideration by government officials, particularly so if they have a credible fear of persecution,” he wrote. “We are a country of laws, and of compassion. We have plainly stated our intent to treat refugees with an ordered process, and benevolence, by codifying principles of asylum.”

“The government’s treatment of Ms. L. and other similarly situated class members does not meet this standard, and it is unlikely to pass constitutional muster,” he added.

Although President Donald Trump issued an executive order providing that migrant families in immigration facilities should be housed together on June 20, the proclamation did not affect some 2,000 migrant children currently in federal custody.
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🇬🇧 **British Queen approves Brexit law that will end membership of EU**
🇬🇧 *Business Insider ᵁᴷ* - <http://archive.li/Vzezs>

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Queen Elizabeth granted royal assent to Prime Minister Theresa May's flagship Brexit legislation on Tuesday, ending months of debate over the legislation that will formally end the country's European Union membership.

The House of Commons speaker John Bercow said the EU withdrawal bill, passed by both houses of parliament last week, had been signed into law by the monarch, to cheers from Conservative lawmakers.

"I have to notify the House in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967 that her Majesty has signified her royal assent to the following acts ... European Union Withdrawal Act 2018," Commons Speaker John Bercow told lawmakers during a session of the house.
┅┅┅┅┅

🇺🇸 **Supreme Court deals sharp defeat to public employee unions, banning mandatory fees**
*LA Times* - <https://archive.li/NdWtU>

By a 5 to 4 vote, the justices overturned a 41-year-old precedent and ruled that the 1st Amendment protects these employees from being required to support a private group whose views may differ from theirs. The decision, in Janus vs. AFSCME, strikes down laws in California, New York and 20 other mostly Democratic-leaning states that authorize unions to negotiate contracts that require all employees to pay a so-called fair share fee to cover the cost of collective bargaining.

In 1977, when public sector unions were getting established, the high court said teachers and other public employees may not be forced to pay full union dues if some of the money went for political contributions. But the justices upheld the lesser fair share fees on the theory that all of the employees benefited from a union contract and its grievance procedures.

But today’s more conservative court disagreed and said employees have a right not to give any support to a union. These payments were described as a form of “compelled speech” which violates the 1st Amendment. The anti-union National Right to Work Foundation, which funded the challenge, predicted the ruling would free more than 5 million public employees from supporting their unions.

For the unions, which traditionally support Democrats, the ruling will mean an immediate loss of some funding and a gradual erosion in their membership. Union officials fear that an unknown number of employees will quit paying dues if doing so is entirely optional. The ruling is likely to have a political impact in many states where these unions have been strong supporters of the Democratic Party.
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🇺🇸 **Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy says he's retiring; Trump to get 2nd high-court pick**
*Chicago Tribune* - <http://archive.is/5qxis>

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said Wednesday he is retiring, giving President Donald Trump the chance to cement conservative control of the high court.

The 81-year-old Kennedy said he is stepping down after more than 30 years on the court. A Republican appointee, he has held the key vote on such high-profile issues as abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, guns, campaign finance and voting rights.

Without him, the court will be split between four liberal justices who were appointed by Democratic presidents and four conservatives who were named by Republicans. Trump's nominee is likely to give the conservatives a solid majority and will face a Senate process in which Republicans hold the slimmest majority, but Democrats can't delay confirmation.

Trump's first high court nominee, Justice Neil Gorsuch, was confirmed in April 2017.
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⚠ **FEDS REMOVING COMMIES FROM PORTLAND ICE HQ LIVESTREAM!!!**
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/federal-cops-move-in-on-ice-protest-in-sw-portland/283-568461821
Aerial helicopter view
https://www.periscope.tv/w/1dRJZgozjOVxB?autoplay=true&q=portland
Periscope
https://twitter.com/BreakingNews/status/1012323513510825984

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🇺🇸 ** Massive data leak could affect nearly all American adults, security researcher says **
*The Mercury News* - <https://archive.li/GBgXT>

Exactis, a Florida-based marketing and data-aggregation firm, leaked detailed information on individual adults and businesses, a security researcher says. While the exact number of individuals affected isn’t known, the leak involved about 340 million records on a publicly available server. No evidence has surfaced that anyone with malicious intent actually obtained the Exactis data. That makes it different from the Equifax hack, which was a cyberattack on the company’s data.

“It seems like this is a database with pretty much every U.S. citizen in it,” Troia, who’s also founder of New York-based security company Night Lion Security, told Wired, which also asked Troia to look up names in the database and confirmed the authenticity of some of the information, although some of it was outdated. “I don’t know where the data is coming from, but it’s one of the most comprehensive collections I’ve ever seen.”

Troia told Wired he was curious about the security of ElasticSearch, which the magazine described as “a popular type of database that’s designed to be easily queried over the internet using just the command line.” When he did a search on the database, he found the Exactis database, which was unprotected. He said he also told the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his findings.

If the Exactis numbers are accurate, this leak would make it one of the biggest data security breaches in a while, topping last year’s Equifax breach and the number of Facebook users affected by the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, which according to Facebook was up to 87 million.
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **Man arrested after shouting ‘womp, womp’ and pulling a gun on immigration protesters**
💩 *WaPoo* - <http://archive.is/S6SCc>

The gathering at a park gazebo in Huntsville, Ala., was by no means the largest of Saturday’s nationwide protests against President Trump’s “zero tolerance” border policies, though it was memorable for other reasons.

It began around noon, as an Episcopal priest delivered a prayer to about 100 protesters gathered around the gazebo and a man marched back and forth in front of her, shouting “womp, womp!”

This was not the man’s only message. He held a sign above his head on which was written “ICE ICE Baby,” and he occasionally shout-sang the notes of a hip-hop song by the same name over the prayer.

A Huntsville police spokesman said the man — identified as 34-year-old Shane Ryan Sealy — pushed one of the protesters, who pushed him back and knocked him to the ground, at which point Sealy allegedly produced the weapon.

A former high school teacher, according to AL.com, he was initially arrested for possessing a gun within 1,000 feet of a protest. But he would later be booked into jail on misdemeanor charges of menacing and reckless endangerment.
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🦅 **24 alleged MS-13 members facing federal indictment for violent racketeering, murder and money laundering conspiracies**
*ICE* - <https://archive.fo/G1tZY>

A federal grand jury has returned a third superseding indictment charging twenty-four alleged members and associates of the gang MS-13. The indictment was returned on June 26, 2018 and unsealed yesterday.

United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert K. Hur stated “MS-13 is one of the most violent and ruthless gangs on the streets today. Working with our state and local partners, and using the tools of our Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, we are determined to dismantle this organization to make our communities in Maryland safer.”

“MS-13 is ravaging communities throughout the United States with brutal violence, recruiting children to their murderous ranks, destroying families, and leaving behind countless victims,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Cronan. “This indictment — which charges two dozen alleged MS-13 members with senseless acts of violence — is the latest example of the Department of Justice’s unwavering commitment to combatting violent gangs that prey on communities, whether in Maryland or elsewhere in our country.”

The six-count indictment alleges that from 2015 and continuing through 2017, MS-13 members and associates engaged in racketeering activity that included murders, conspiracies to commit murder, attempted murders, extortion, robbery, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and money laundering.

The maximum sentence for the racketeering conspiracy is 20 years in prison, or up to life if special circumstances are proven; a maximum of 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering; and a maximum of 20 years in prison for money laundering conspiracy. Initial appearances for the defendants began on June 27, 2018, in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
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<:joye:384631689613148160> **'20 pounds of human waste' dropped on San Francisco street corner**
*SF Gate* - <https://archive.fo/xHq7B>

A foul odor permeated from a massive bag of human excrement sludge left on a street corner in San Francisco's Tenderloin district Saturday.

The horrendous smell and sight quickly gained notoriety when a Reddit user posted a screen shot of a report made to San Francisco's Citizen app for identifying crimes.

"Twenty pounds of feces dumped onto sidewalk," the report called out.

Nancy Alfaro, a spokesperson for 311, says three reports of the human waste at the corner of Cedar and Polk were made to the city's customer service number and app on Saturday.

"The customers did report a large amount of waste," Alfaro says. "It was sent to Public Works."

Alfaro says while reports of human waste are common, this large of an amount is "not typical."

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🇺🇸 **Walmart pulls controversial 'Impeach 45' clothing from website after harsh feedback**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.li/68X45>

Walmart has pulled the the controversial anti-Trump “Impeach 45” apparel from its website after receiving harsh feedback online.

The outcry sparked a #BoycottWalmart trend on Twitter as users expressed their distaste for the chain promoting the impeachment of President Trump, echoing some Congressional Democrats.

Ryan Fournier, chairman of the group Students for Trump, was one of the first to discover Walmart was selling the clothing item, according to the International Business Times. He asked the company in a tweet, “What kind of message are you trying to send?”

"These items were sold by third party sellers on our open marketplace, and were not offered directly by Walmart. We’re removing these types of items pending review of our marketplace policies," a Walmart spokesperson told Fox News.

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🇺🇸 **Trump administration is breaking from Obama-era affirmative action policies**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.li/NhALf>

The Trump administration is doing away with a series of affirmative-action policy documents put in place under former President Barack Obama that encourage colleges and universities to use race in admissions processes to promote campus diversity.

The guidelines, implemented under Obama between 2010 and 2016, put forth legal recommendations that officials in the Trump White House say “mislead schools to believe that legal forms of affirmative action are simpler to achieve than the law allows,” according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The Trump administration contends that the Obama-era guidelines go far beyond what the Supreme Court has decided on in regard to affirmative action. The court has ruled that colleges and universities can use affirmative action to help minority students get into school, but conservatives over the years have argued that these programs hurt the chances of white and Asian-American applicants.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited “improper rulemaking.” He said, “The American people deserve to have their voices heard and a government that is accountable to them. When issuing regulations, federal agencies must abide by constitutional principles and follow the rules set forth by Congress and the President. In previous administrations, however, agencies often tried to impose new rules on the American people without any public notice or comment period, simply by sending a letter or posting a guidance document on a website. That’s wrong, and it’s not good government.”
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🦅 **Happy 4th of July**

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🇪🇺 **European Parliament rejects controversial copyright rules in major victory for campaigners**
*Independent* - <https://archive.fo/v2AsG>

The European Parliament has voted against an incredibly controversial new set of copyright rules that campaigners claim could "ban memes".

The law will now be sent for a full reconsideration and debate inside the parliament, during which activists will try and remove the controversial Article 11 and 13.

Article 11 has been referred to by campaigners as instituting a "link tax", by forcing tech companies like Google and Facebook to pay to use snippets of content on their own sites. Article 13 adds rules that make tech companies responsible for ensuring any copyrighted material is not spread over their platforms.

Those rules could force technology companies to scan through everything their users post and check it doesn't include copyrighted material. If it is found, the post will be forced to be removed, which campaigners claim could destroy the kind of memes and remixes that spread across the internet.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Teen attacked at Whataburger for wearing 'Make America Great Again' hat**
<http://archive.is/Y5T8W>

Police are investigating after a teen says he was verbally attacked and assaulted at a Whataburger for wearing a Make America Great Again hat.

In the video, you can see a man throw a drink in 16-year-old Hunter Richard's face before leaving the restaurant with his hat. Hunter said some of his hair was pulled during the assault.

"I support my President and if you don’t let’s have a conversation about it instead of ripping my hat off. I just think a conversation about politics is more productive for the entire whole rather than taking my hat and yelling subjective words to me," he said.

Hunter was with his friends at the Whataburger off Nacogdoches and Thousand Oaks Tuesday night when it happened. They say the attack was unprovoked.
https://twitter.com/brxpug/status/1014417257945018368

-----------------

🇺🇸 **Ringleader given 8 years in prison for beating teen with disability in attack livestreamed on Facebook**
*Chicago Tribune* - <https://archive.fo/KtYDl>

The accused ringleader in the racially charged beating of a teen with mental disabilities last year was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty Thursday. The case drew national outrage when the attackers livestreamed video of the attack on Facebook.

Jordan Hill, 20, pleaded guilty to one count each of a hate crime and aggravated kidnapping, becoming the third of four defendants to admit wrongdoing. An attorney for the remaining defendant, Tesfaye Cooper, 20, indicated in court Thursday his client is considering a plea deal as well.

Prosecutors on Thursday painted Hill as the instigator of the attack, saying he led the 18-year-old victim to the apartment where the incident took place and demanded money from the victim’s mother in exchange for his return.

Video posted in January 2017 shows the four defendants — all African-American — cutting the white victim’s scalp with a knife, punching and kicking him and laughing as he was bound and gagged in an apartment on Chicago’s West Side.

The gruesome video drew condemnation, including by then-President Barack Obama. Right-wing pundits used it as a rallying cry, tying it without evidence to the Black Lives Matter movement and blaming permissive policing.

-----------------

⚠ **Scott Pruitt Resigns from EPA**
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1014956568129892352

-----------------

🇺🇸 **Trump nominates Brett Kavanaugh to Supreme Court**
*AP* - <http://archive.fo/r9zKU>

President Donald Trump is nominating influential conservative Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as he seeks to shift the nation’s highest court further to the right.

Trump chose the 53-year-old federal appellate judge for the seat opened up by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh would be less receptive to abortion and gay rights than Kennedy was.

Kavanaugh is Trump’s second high court pick after Justice Neil Gorsuch. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch served as law clerks to Kennedy at the same time early in their legal careers.

Kavanaugh is a longtime fixture of the Republican legal establishment. He has been a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington since 2006. He also was a key aide to Kenneth Starr during his investigation of President Bill Clinton and worked in the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency.
-----------------

🏳️‍🌈 **Study finds health risks for transgender women on hormone therapy**
*NBC News* - <https://archive.fo/Zscha>

Transgender women on hormone therapy may be at a higher risk for cardiovascular problems, such as stroke, blood clots and heart attack, researchers reported Monday.

The study was done by reviewing eight years of medical records of nearly 5,000 transgender patients in the Kaiser Health system, and looked at patients over the age of 18 who took hormones for gender transition. Over 97,000 cisgender patients — people whose sex assigned at birth matches their gender identity — with similar age and health characteristics were studied for comparison.

“This is the largest study of the health of transgender individuals on hormone therapy ever done,” Dr. Darios Getahun, an author of the study and research scientist at Kaiser Permanente, told NBC News. “Doctors and patients need to be aware of the possibility for increased health risks for transgender women.”

The study found that transgender women, who are assigned the male sex at birth, were twice as likely as cisgender men or women to have the blood clot condition venous thromboembolism. Transgender women on hormone therapy were also found to be 80 to 90 percent more likely to have stroke or a heart attack than cisgender women.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Trump pardons Oregon ranchers at center of 40-day standoff**
*The Hill* - <http://archive.is/H9P9k>

President Trump on Tuesday pardoned a pair of Oregon ranchers whose arson conviction became a focus for opponents of federal government land ownership.

Dwight Hammond, 76, and his son Steven, 49, were convicted in 2012 and sent to prison on arson charges. They had set a series of fires on their ranch that spread to federal land.

The Hammonds’ case became the inspiration for the 40-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. The organizers wanted to protest federal land ownership.

The Hammonds distanced themselves from the occupiers and didn't endorse the action.
-----------------

<:ancap:280811320541052940> **The Government Will Allow Cody Wilson's Defense Distributed to Distribute Gun-Making Software**
*Reason* - <http://archive.is/S1shv>

The Justice Department has reached a settlement with the Second Amendment Foundation and Defense Distributed, a collective that organizes, promotes, and distributes technologies to help home gun-makers. Under the agreement, which resolved a suit filed by the two groups in 2015, Americans may "access, discuss, use, reproduce or otherwise benefit from the technical data" that the government had previously ordered Defense Distributed to cease distributing.

Before this, the feds had insisted that Defense Distributed's gun-making files violate the munitions export rules embedded in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Defense Distributed's suit claimed that this was was "censorship of Plaintiffs' speech," since the files in question consist of computer code and thus counted as expression. It also argued that "the ad hoc, informal and arbitrary manner in which that scheme is applied, violate the First, Second, and Fifth Amendments." (The Second because the information in the computer files implicates weapons possession rights.)

Wired also speculates that the settlement is some sign of a Trump administration bending over backwards to satisfy a Second Amendment constituency. Alan Gura, one of the lawyers on the plaintiffs' side—and the attorney who won both 2008's Heller case and 2010's McDonald, two major Supreme Court victories for gun rights—disagrees, noting the administration's record in other ongoing Second Amendment cases.

-
*tl;dr*
>Significantly, the government expressly acknowledges that non-automatic firearms up to .50-caliber—including modern semi-auto sporting rifles such as the popular AR-15 and similar firearms—are not inherently military.
-----------------

<:trump:284711336934375425> **Antifa tries to blockade Portland ICE HQ again but got smoked**
https://twitter.com/pdxlawgrrrl/status/1017176379056517120
https://twitter.com/Braidsoffury423/status/1017083464481308672
https://youtu.be/uhWe44a7Yjc

-----------------

music to my ears

🇺🇸 **Stormy Daniels arrested at Ohio strip club. Her attorney calls it a setup.**
*CNN* - <https://archive.fo/BWZjS>

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels was arrested early Thursday at an Ohio strip club for allegedly touching patrons on stage in violation of state law.

Daniels, who gained notoriety after suing President Donald Trump following an alleged affair, faces three misdemeanor counts of illegally touching a patron and will be arraigned Friday morning, court records show. She posted a $6,054 bail and was released Thursday morning.

Daniels will plead not guilty to the three misdemeanor charges, her attorney, Michael Avenatti, tweeted. Avenatti said his client was taken into custody while performing at a strip club in Columbus.

Under Ohio law, an employee who regularly appears nude or seminude is prohibited from touching patrons on the premises of a sexually oriented business -- unless it's a family member.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Trump releases letter from Kim Jong-Un**
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1017446575474335744/photo/1

-----------------

🇰🇵 **N. Korea announces amnesty to celebrate 70th founding anniversary **
*YONHAP/KCNA* - <https://archive.fo/aKF7k>

North Korea plans to implement a general amnesty next month before celebrating its 70th founding anniversary on Sept. 9, Pyongyang's media said Monday.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that amnesty will be granted to those who were convicted of crimes against the country and people on the occasion of the North's 70th founding anniversary.

The amnesty will take effect on Aug. 1, the report said, noting the cabinet and relevant organs will take practical measures to help the released people settle down to a normal working life.

In this regard, the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly promulgated a decree on July 12, the KCNA said.

According to a full text carried by the Rodong Sinmun on the same day, the decree said it is the intrinsic demand of a Korean-style socialist system and the consistent principle of state activities to protect the independent and creative life of the popular masses and make selfless, devoted efforts for them by thoroughly applying the people-first principle.

The North last carried out a general amnesty in 2015 in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Korean Peninsula's liberation from Japan's colonial rule and the founding of the Workers' Party.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Illegal Immigrant BEHEADS 13-Year-Old Special Needs Girl, Murders Grandmother, Officials Say**
*Daily Wire* - <http://archive.is/9Ti0V>

Alabama law enforcement officials say that an illegal immigrant and an immigrant in the United States on a green card are responsible for the brutal murders of a grandmother and her 13-year-old special needs granddaughter in what investigators say is violence related to Mexican drug cartels.

The grandmother, 49-year-old Oralia Mendoza, was allegedly connected to the Sinaloa Mexican drug cartel which is widely considered to be the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world.

Authorities say that Mendoza and Aguilar lived together and were dating and that she had dated Palomino in the past.

He also found a text message sent to an unknown woman during the Georgia drug run, investigators said. In that text, Mendoza asked the woman to pick up her granddaughter from Palomino's wife because she was afraid for their lives, they said. After discovering the text message, Palomino and Aguilar allegedly woke up Mendoza during the night and told her that they were taking her and her granddaughter to somewhere safe, investigators said.

The two men then reportedly took her to a cemetery where she began to argue with Palomino who then stabbed her and left her there to die. The two men then took the granddaughter to a separate location where they allegedly decapitated her.

Several days after the murders, authorities had Aguilar and Palomino in custody. Aguilar allegedly confessed to the crimes.
-----------------

another set of doctors and lawyers from mexico.

<:trump:284711336934375425> **Watch: Man kicked out of Trump-Putin press conference**
https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1018875039201026054

-----------------

🇺🇸 **National Guard deployment led to more than 10,000 additional arrests of illegal immigrants, says CBP**
*Wash Ex* - <http://archive.is/2GqQv>

The National Guard's deployment to the southwest border in mid-April has led to an additional 10,805 "deportable alien arrests" of people who illegally entered the United States from Mexico, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman said Monday.

Because guardsmen are military personnel and not law enforcement officers, they cannot apprehend illegal immigrants. But CBP officers and Border Patrol agents apprehended thousands of additional people that guardsmen helped point out.

The National Guard's presence also helped lead to the interception of more than 3,300 others who were turned back before they crossed into the U.S., CBP press secretary Corry Schiermeyer said in an email to the Washington Examiner. The Guard's deployment has also led to an additional 11,686 pounds of marijuana being seized as a result of their work.

Troops are providing support from the air, surveillance backup, and assistance with infrastructure projects like vegetation clearing and road maintenance, not including border wall construction. Another task is to specifically free up agents to leave their desks and get back out to the field. The troops monitoring remote video surveillance systems have then been able to report sightings to a greater field of agents, and thus the number of apprehensions has increased, officials said.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **'Trump Baby' protest blimp is coming to America**
*NBC News* - <https://archive.fo/2YuyY>

Activists from various states including California, Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina and Utah have already reached out to get involved in the 'Trump Baby' tour.

A GoFundMe page to bring the giant blimp of ‘Baby Trump’ — from the recent protests in the U.K. — to the United States has raised more than $10,000 in just three days, doubling its original goal.

"This effort is our commitment to opposing Donald Trump in any way we possibly can," activist Jim Girvan, the co-creator of the fundraising page, told NBC News. "This is an opportunity to get even a little bit closer and even more annoying to the president."

The 20-foot-tall inflatable orange baby with the face of Donald Trump floated over Britain’s parliament as tens of thousands of protesters took the streets in response to the president’s visit. A failed petition to fly the blimp over Trump's golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, prior to his visit, garnered more than 16,000 signatures.

Girvan and Jimenez plan to do a nationwide tour with the blimp starting in August and are hoping to use the money they raised to create an American-made version, instead of transporting the original one from the U.K.

"Some of the plans we are keeping under wraps, but we are looking at Mar-a-Lago, there will be a Trump Baby flying off of his golf course, because he uses it as a hideaway from his job," Girvan said. "He doesn’t like doing his job, he doesn’t even know how to do his job."
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🇺🇸 Elon Musk calls British diver in Thai cave rescue 'pedo' in baseless attack
The Guardian - http://archive.li/xsydd

Elon Musk came under fire on Sunday after launching an extraordinary attack on a British diver who helped rescue the boys trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand, baselessly calling him a “pedo” on Twitter and then doubling down.

Twelve boys and their football coach were rescued from the Tham Luang cave complex by an international team and after a week of intense drama.

The chief executive of the tech giant Tesla offered to assist the rescue mission by providing a submarine. The request was turned down. Musk lashed out on Sunday, saying he would make a video proving that his “mini-sub” would have been successful and adding: “Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.”
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🇺🇸 **Man nabbed in wife’s chainsaw attack was deported 11 times**
*NYP* - <http://archive.is/ikQfS>

Officials say a man accused of attacking his wife with a chainsaw in front of their children at their Los Angeles-area home had been deported from the U.S. 11 times.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lori Haley says 32-year-old Alejandro Alvarez-Villegas is a “serial immigration violator.”

Alvarez-Villegas was arrested on Thursday in a stolen vehicle in Chula Vista, a few miles from the Mexican border.

Police said Alvarez-Villegas is suspected of attacking his wife at their Whittier home, leaving her covered in blood. She is expected to recover.

Alvarez-Villegas has been in and out of the U.S. since 2005.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Mandalay Bay owners sue victims of Las Vegas mass shooting**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.fo/updYm>

The corporate owners of the Mandalay Bay casino filed suit against the victims of last year’s Las Vegas concert mass shooting, claiming it has no liability for the massacre, according to a published report on Monday.

MGM Resorts International went to federal courts in Nevada and California and took on more than 1,000 shooting victims, saying claims against the hotel giant “must be dismissed.” “Plaintiffs have no liability of any kind to defendants,” the complaints argue, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Las Vegas lawyer Robert Eglet, who is representing several victims, told the paper that the hotel’s unusual action is a pre-emptive strike to get the cases heard in federal court instead of state court. Englet said MGM must believe it has better chances of victory in a federal case.

The MGM lawsuits are a “blatant display of judge shopping” that “quite frankly verges on unethical,” according to Eglet. “I’ve never seen a more outrageous thing, where they sue the victims in an effort to find a judge they like,” the lawyer continued. “It’s just really sad that they would stoop to this level.”

An MGM spokeswoman said Monday of the company’s lawsuits: “The Federal Court is an appropriate venue for these cases and provides those affected with the opportunity for a timely resolution. Years of drawn out litigation and hearings are not in the best interest of victims, the community and those still healing.”
-----------------

🇪🇺 **Google fined £3.8bn ($5bn US) by EU over Android antitrust violations**
*The Guardian* - <https://archive.fo/r23i0>

Google has been hit with a record €4.34bn (£3.8bn) fine by the European Union for abusing its market dominance in mobile phone operating systems.

The EU imposed the multibillion-euro penalty after finding that the US tech firm required smartphone manufacturers to pre-instal Google’s search and browser apps devices using its Android operating system, otherwise they would not be allowed to use its Google Play online store and streaming service.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, said Google has used its Android mobile phone operating system “to cement its dominance as a search engine”, preventing rivals from innovating and competing “and this is illegal under EU antitrust rules”.

Vestager added: “The vast majority of users simply take what comes with their device and don’t download competing apps. “Or to slightly paraphrase what [US free market economist] Milton Friedman has said ‘there ain’t no such thing as a free search.’”

Wednesday’s verdict ends a 39-month investigation by the European commission’s competition authorities into Google’s Android operating system. Laying out the statement of objections in April 2016, the commission accused the company of abusing its market dominance on three counts. First, by installing Google search as the default search engine on Android devices; second, preventing smartphone manufacturers from running competing systems; third, denying consumer choice, by giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile phone operators to pre-install Google Search.
-----------------

👌 **Mayor suspends 4 cops after they pose for photo that some claim included gestures of white power**
*The Blaze* <http://archive.is/1O1ki>

David O’Mary, mayor of Jasper, Alabama, suspended four police officers after a photo of the officers went viral after some local residents said that the cops were making hand gestures to signify white power and supremacy.

The photo in question, which was published in the Daily Mountain Eagle, featured several police officers who were instrumental in successfully carrying out a drug bust on a repeat offender.

In the photo, at least four of the Jasper officers can be seen making an “OK” sign on their legs with their fingers. A Twitter user pointed out the hand gesture, calling them “white nationalist hand signs.” In a tweet, the user wrote, “Jasper, AL police making white nationalist hand signs. Many faces are visible. Please help ID.”

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🇮🇱 **Israel approves controversial 'Jewish nation state' law**
*BBC* - <https://archive.fo/X77VM>

Israel's parliament has passed into law a controversial bill that defines the country as an exclusively Jewish state.

The "Jewish nation state" bill downgrades Arabic as an official language and says advancing Jewish settlement is a national interest. It also states that the "whole and united" Jerusalem is its capital.

Israeli Arab MPs condemned the legislation, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised it as a "defining moment".

The bill, backed by the country's right-wing government, says that "Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it".

It was passed after a stormy session in the Knesset that lasted more than eight hours. Sixty-two MPs voted for the bill, with 55 against. However some clauses were dropped following objections by Israel's president and attorney-general, including a clause that would have enshrined in law the creation of Jewish-only communities.
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Greater israel when?

<:trump:284711336934375425> **Trump asked aide to invite Putin to Washington, White House says**
*CBS* - <http://archive.is/H6KKa>

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a tweet Thursday that President Trump has asked his national security adviser to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to Washington, D.C. in the fall.

The two world leaders have made headlines over their Monday summit in Helsinki, Finland, in which Mr. Trump's performance was widely criticized. Mr. Trump's relationship with Putin has come under close scrutiny amid the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

But Mr. Trump has continued to insist that the U.S. should try to have a good relationship with Russia. He also says Russian interference with the election had nothing to do with his surprise victory and that his staff never colluded with foreign intelligence.

Mr. Trump tweeted about the potential "second meeting" with the Kremlin Thursday.

"The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media," he said. "I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear........"

The last time a Russian presidential visit happened was in June 2010 when then-president Barack Obama met with President Dmitry Medvedev.
-----------------

"Mr.trump"

🇸🇾 **Jordan takes in Syrian 'White Helmets' evacuated with Israeli help**
🇮🇱 *Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/vNPzq>

Jordan said on Sunday 800 people including members of Syria’s “White Helmets” civil defense group had been evacuated from southwest Syria where Damascus’ forces are advancing against rebels, with Israeli officials saying they facilitated the mission.

The Israeli military said that overnight it had completed “a humanitarian effort to rescue members of a Syrian civil organization and their families ...due to an immediate threat to their lives”.

It said they were transferred to a neighboring country, which it did not identify.

On Saturday, Israeli security forces closed down roads in the occupied Golan Heights, on the Syrian frontier, ahead of the evacuation operation.

A Jordanian foreign ministry spokesman said the kingdom had allowed the UN to arrange the entry and passage of 800 Syrian civil defense workers. said their lives were in danger after a government offensive that regained rebel-held parts of southern Syria.

The kingdom agreed to a request by Britain, Germany and Canada to give the White Helmet workers temporary asylum in the kingdom before settlement in the West on humanitarian grounds, spokesman Mohammad al Kayed said.

He said the aid workers would remain at a “closed” location and that Britain, Germany and Canada had agreed to resettle them within three months.
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🇮🇱 ** Hamas Kills IDF Soldier, Declares Ceasefire**
*Israel News* - https://archive.fo/aon4P

IDF Staff Sgt. Aviv Levi was killed on Friday by sniper fire from Gaza making him the first IDF casualty on the southern border since the 2014 war.

Staff Sergeant Aviv Levi, a platoon sergeant in the Givati Brigade, was shot and killed yesterday during operational activity in the southern Gaza Strip. He was 21 years old.

Hadashot News reported that Levi was wearing a bulletproof vest at the time he was shot in the chest but he was seriously wounded and his condition quickly deteriorated.

The shooting from Gaza came during the Hamas led March of Return protests. The IDF reported that during the protests, several explosives were thrown at IDF soldiers but there were no injuries.
The IDF responded by attacking approximately 60 Hamas military targets in Gaza overnight on Friday.

After the IDF strikes, red alert sirens sounded as projectiles were fired at southern Israel from Gaza. Iron Dome systems intercepted at least two projectiles and a third fell in an open field.

An Israeli soldier was killed by a sniper and rockets were fired at Israel.

At midnight on Friday night, Hamas declared a ceasefire via Egyptian mediation. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum tweeted, “With Egyptian and UN efforts, [an agreement] was reached to return to the previous situation of ceasefire between the occupation and Palestinian factions.”
Hamas refers to Israel as “the occupation”.
Four Gazans were killed on Friday.  Three of them were confirmed by Hamas as members of its military wing, the Qassam Brigade.
On Saturday morning, several Gazans attempted to infiltrate into Israel, prompting the IDF to fire a tank shell at a Hamas post. The infiltrators returned across the border.
Throughout Saturday, incendiary kites and balloons continued to be launched into Israel. A fire was set in the cowshed of Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The IDF responded by firing a tank shell at a Hamas post.

🇨🇦 **Dramatic moment gunman dressed all in black opens fire into a restaurant in Toronto, injuring nine people including a child, before he is killed at the scene**
*Daily Mail* - <https://archive.fo/15jXw>

This is the horrifying moment a gunman opened fire on a restaurant in Toronto in a mass shooting that left nine injured before he was killed.

Witnesses say that a man dressed in black opened fire in Greektown on Danforth, a popular area of the city full of restaurants and stores, at around 10pm on Sunday evening. Between 15 and 20 gunshots were heard.

Police have confirmed that the shooter is now dead.

A cellphone video, which appears to have been shot by someone in an apartment above the street, appeared to capture the shooter, in a black hoodie, walking down the street. Suddenly he turned as he passed by what appeared to be a store or restaurant front, whipped out his gun and opened fire.

Three gunshots were heard before the person filming quickly pulled back in and stopped the video. Victims reportedly suffered 'significant injuries'.

The shooter was pronounced dead at the scene, while six of his victims were rushed to a trauma center. One child was taken to a pediatric trauma center, and two others were taken to hospital.
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🇺🇸 **Judge says Pakistan-born terrorist convicted of helping Al-Qaeda can KEEP his US citizenship after government tried to take it away over his plot to 'cut the cables' on the Brooklyn Bridge**
*Daily Mail/AP* - <https://archive.fo/O5d9r>

The government can't strip a terrorist of his U.S. citizenship, a federal judge ruled this month in a decision siding with a Pakistan-born man serving the last few years of a 20-year prison sentence for his guilty plea to plotting to destroy New York's Brooklyn Bridge.

The case involves Iyman Faris, who was sentenced in 2003 for aiding and abetting Al-Qaeda by scoping out the bridge as part of a plot to cut through cables that support it.

His case was among the first and highest-profile terrorism cases after the September 11 attacks.

Faris met with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and worked with Sept. 11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, although some critics questioned how realistic the plot was, given post-Sept. 11 security in New York.

A court filing last year in U.S. District Court in southern Illinois argued that Faris lied on immigration papers before becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1999 and that his terrorist affiliations demonstrated a lack of commitment to the U.S. Constitution.

'The U.S. government is dedicated to ... preventing the exploitation of our nation's immigration system by those who would do harm to our country,' Chad Readler, acting assistant attorney of the Department of Justice's civil division, said in a statement at the time.
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🇮🇱 **Syrian state television says Israel struck military post in Hama province**
🇸🇾 *Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/MFBLm>

Syrian state television said on Sunday an Israeli air strike had hit a military post in the city of Misyaf in Syria’s Hama province but caused only material damage.

The newsflash did not elaborate on what exactly had been targeted. An intelligence source said a major military research center for chemical arms production was located near the city and believed to house a team of Iranian military experts involved in weapons production.

When asked about the reports of the air strike, an Israeli military spokeswoman said: “We do not comment on foreign reports.”

Last week, Syrian state media said Israeli rockets had struck a Syrian military position near Nairab airport on the outskirts of the city of Aleppo.

Opposition sources said several Iranians were killed at a logistics site used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards near the airport.

Some of Iran’s military bases in Syria are next to Syrian military compounds or within army barracks, according to the intelligence source adding this complicated the task of singling out Iranian military assets from Syrian army units.
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🇨🇦** Toronto shooting: Gunman kills woman and child in Greektown**
*BBC* - http://archive.fo/87mIN

A gunman has opened fire on a busy avenue in Toronto, killing a young woman and injuring 13 other people, one of them critically, police say.
The victim critically injured in the Canadian city's Greektown district is a girl of eight or nine, they add.
The gunman is dead, reportedly killed in an exchange of shots.
The attack happened on Danforth Avenue on Sunday evening, when the area was teeming with people, Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper reports.
Canada country profile
The motive for the shooting, which reportedly targeted a restaurant, is still unclear.
In a video clip shared by Canadian media, a white man wearing a dark cap and dark clothing and carrying a shoulder bag can be seen stopping on a pavement and pulling out a handgun before firing shots.
Some of the victims were treated at the scene, while others were taken to local hospitals.
Police are appealing for witnesses.

🇨🇦 **Toronto shooting suspect identified as Faisal Hussain, 29**
*BBC* - <https://archive.fo/F7GV1>

Canadian officials have identified the suspect in Sunday's deadly shooting in Toronto as Faisal Hussain, 29.

The Ontario Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said it was releasing his name due "to the exceptional circumstances of this tragic incident".

A 10-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman died after a gunman opened fire on a busy avenue in Canada's largest city.

Thirteen others were injured in the rampage in Canada's largest city.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Di0yg_PXgAA1ge9.jpg
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🇮🇱 🇺🇸 **In recording, Netanyahu boasts Israel convinced Trump to quit Iran nuclear deal**
🇮🇷 *The Times Of Israel* - <https://archive.fo/hdfrA>

In a video clip aired Tuesday by Israeli television, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel was responsible for US President Donald Trump’s decision to quit the Iran nuclear deal.

In the video, which the Kan public broadcaster said was filmed two weeks ago, Netanyahu can be seen speaking to activists and senior members from his Likud party.

“We convinced the US president [to exit the deal] and I had to stand up against the whole world and come out against this agreement,” Netanyahu says in the video. “And we didn’t give up.”

The prime minister then begins to speak about the Iranian regime — “not the Iranian people, I have nothing against them” — before he is interrupted by an unidentified person off-screen who says, “It will disappear with the help of God.”

“You said it. From your mouth to God,” Netanyahu says in response as the clip ends.
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🇩🇿 **Algeria abandons hundreds more African migrants in desert**
*Deutsche Welle/AP/AFP* - <https://archive.fo/ZXDED>

A UN migration official has accused Algeria of leaving hundreds of African migrants stranded in the desert. A report said migrants from 16 African countries are among those ditched in the Sahara with little water.

A rescue official in neighboring Niger said on Sunday that nearly 600 African migrants in Algeria were abandoned in the desert with hardly any food or water before being rescued.

This comes after a report from a UN migration official who said on Saturday that Algeria's government has resumed expelling migrants into the Sahara Desert. Recently they left 391 people in some of the world's most hostile terrain in the middle of summer when temperatures can reach over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

According to a tweet from Giuseppe Loprete, the head of the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Niger, migrants from 16 different countries were abandoned at the border with Niger.

Last month, the Associated Press reported that Algeria has left more than 13,000 migrants in the desert of Niger and Mali since May 2017, forcing them to walk or die in the searing heat.

After the AP report came out, the expulsions appeared to have been suspended. IOM in Mali said the normally secretive Algerian government seemed to be trying to make an effort to communicate the movement of the migrants.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Philadelphia will no longer let ICE access arrest database**
*The Hill* - <https://archive.fo/APgh3>

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney announced Friday that has stopped allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to access a key city law enforcement database.

Kenney plans to formally announce the decision to terminate the city’s contract with ICE Friday afternoon, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“I cannot in good conscience allow the agreement to continue,” Kenney told the paper.

Kenney’s decision comes after several incidents that he says gave him reason to be concerned that the agency was using its access to the Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System, or PARS, in “inappropriate ways.”

The mayor’s office claimed that ICE would search the database to find Philadelphia residents born outside of the U.S. and target them for investigation, even if they had not been accused or convicted of a crime.

According to the mayor, Philadelphia ICE officials confirmed earlier this month that the agency’s access to the database could result in immigration enforcement against residents without criminal convictions.

The database, which is a real-time database of arrests, does not list immigration status, according to the Inquirer, but does include country of origin and Social Security number.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Michael Avenatti Shitting Bricks**
Michael Avenatti's Twitter Post 7/30/2018 <https://twitter.com/MichaelAvenatti/status/1024020664301248512>
Q Posts Picture of Menacing Man on Sunday 7/29/2018 outside Avenatti's Office <https://8ch.net/qresearch/res/2340444.html#2340661>

Offices of MA.
Work on Sunday?
Who is supplying feed?
Who is financing?
Q

🇺🇸 **Sessions announces new 'religious liberty task force'**
*CNN* - <https://archive.fo/B21p8>

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday announced the Department of Justice's creation of a "religious liberty task force" to "help the department fully implement our religious guidance."

In a speech at the Department of Justice's Religious Liberty Summit in Washington, Sessions said the goal of the task force will be protecting religious groups from persecution.
"The task force will help the department fully implement our religious liberty guidance by ensuring that all Justice Department components are upholding that guidance in the cases they bring and defend, the arguments they make in court, the policies and regulations they adopt and how we conduct our operations," Sessions said. "That includes making sure that our employees know their duties to accommodate people of faith."

Sessions cited "a dangerous movement" aimed toward stripping away the First Amendment right to freedom of religion as a basis for forming the new task force.

"A dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom," Sessions said in his speech. "There can be no doubt. This is no little matter. It must be confronted and defeated."

*"The Religious Liberty Task Force will continue the Department's ongoing work to implement the Religious Liberty Memorandum and the implementation memorandum," Sessions stated in the memo. "The Task Force will also consider new initiatives that will further the Department's work to protect and promote religious liberty."*
-----------------

🇺🇸 **More than 450 people in Florida ordered to give up guns under new law, report says**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.fo/M7Vwg>

Hundreds of gun owners in Florida have been ordered to give up their guns under a new law that took effect after the deadly Parkland shooting in February, according to a report published Monday.

The Risk Protection Order, signed by Florida Gov. Rick Scott just three weeks after a gunman killed 17 people at Stoneman Douglas, aims to temporarily remove weapons from gun owners who have been deemed by a judge to possibly be a threat to themselves or others.

Roughly 200 firearms have been confiscated in the state since the law was enacted, Sgt. Jason Schmittendorf, of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, told WFTS-TV. "Around 30,000 rounds of ammunition" were also taken, he said.

A five-person team in the county that's worked solely on the risk protection law reportedly has filed 64 risk protection petitions in court. Broward County, according to the news outlet, has filed 88 risk protection petitions since March.

"It’s a constitutional right to bear arms and when you are asking the court to deprive somebody of that right we need to make sure we are making good decisions, right decisions and the circumstances warrant it,” Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told the station in defense of the task force.

Every petition filed under the order in Pinellas County has so far been granted by the judge, according to the report.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Avenatti Targeted in Person by QAnon, the Crazy Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theory** by (((WILL SOMER)))
*Daily Beast* - (fake news) <https://www.thedailybeast.com/avenatti-targeted-in-person-by-qanon-the-crazy-pro-trump-conspiracy-theory>

The MSM just can't help itself, here we go with the whining and wild implications yet again. Right on schedule as usual, fake concern and always implying things. **Warning** excessive kvetching and whining as usual.

Stormy Daniels’s lawyer Michael Avenatti is the latest target for supporters of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon, with police investigating a man’s appearance near Avenatti’s office after the building was mentioned in QAnon posts.

🇺🇸 **What is QAnon? Explaining the bizarre rightwing conspiracy theory** by Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco (oh gosh I don't even know. Chinese and Jewish I guess, FOR REALS)
*The Guardian* (fake news) - <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/30/qanon-4chan-rightwing-conspiracy-theory-explained-trump>

The sprawling internet theory, beloved by Trump supporters, has ensnared everyone from Tom Hanks to Hillary Clinton.

On 28 October 2017, “Q” emerged from the primordial swamp of the internet on the message board 4chan. In a thread called “Calm Before the Storm”, and in subsequent posts, Q established his legend as a government insider with top security clearance who knew the truth about a secret struggle for power involving Donald Trump, the “deep state”, Robert Mueller, the Clintons, pedophile rings, and other stuff.

🇺🇸 **A Group of Top Government Spooks & Hackers on the FBI’s Payroll Just Tore Mueller’s Russian Indictments to Shreds; “Piles” of Fabricated Evidence Detailed Here**
*True Pundit* - <https://truepundit.com/a-group-of-top-government-spooks-piles-of-fabricated-evidence-detailed-here/>

Mueller and crew fabricated evidence.

We asked a number of government spooks and hackers and contractors who have worked for the FBI and other spooky federal agencies to examine Robert Mueller’s latest indictments of 12 alleged Russian “operatives.”

Their conclusion? HOAX. Mueller’s team fabricated evidence. And a whole lot of evidence. What kind of evidence? It’s all right here.

Whether you understand IT or not, the evidence Mueller claims points to Russia actually also points to India, Pakistan and of course China. Funny though, Mueller never mentions that in his indictment.

🇺🇸 **Portland Police Refused To Help ICE Agents Who Called 911, Agents Say**
*Daily Caller* - <https://archive.fo/tCxSA>

Portland, Oregon, police refused to respond to at least two 911 emergency calls from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees inside their offices where violent protesters held week-long demonstrations.

The National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, a union representing ICE employees, wrote a cease-and-desist letter to Mayor Ted Wheeler, asking him to ensure the police enforce the law equally and protect innocent people.

“Your current policy forbidding Portland law enforcement agencies from assisting employees of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency who request law enforcement assistance while at or away from work is a violation of the United States Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause,” the letter says.

Demonstrators, some affiliated with the domestic terrorist organization Antifa, set up a city of tents outside the ICE offices. After setting up camp, they became violent and incited violence several times.

“Every person in law enforcement knows there are few things as dangerous or as unpredictable than an angry mob,”said Chris Crane, president of the national union, WWeek reported Monday. “No one could have responded quickly enough to protect our employees who were trapped inside this building. All of this because the Mayor of Portland has a beef with the president of the United States.”
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🇬🇧 **Tommy Robinson, Anti-Muslim Activist, Is Freed on Bail in U.K.**
*New York Times* - <https://archive.fo/INBFc>

LONDON — Tommy Robinson, the jailed British far-right activist who has gained the support of figures like Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief strategist for President Trump, was ordered released on bail on Wednesday, after challenging his conviction for contempt of court.

Mr. Robinson was arrested in May after he broadcast live video from outside a criminal trial in Leeds, England, which had a news media blackout.

He was sentenced to 13 months in prison for contempt of court, provoking an international outcry in far-right circles.

On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal ordered his release, pending a new hearing in his case.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **FISA documents reveal FBI collusion** by Laura Hollis Monday, July 30, 2018
*Boston Herald* - <http://www.bostonherald.com/opinion/op_ed/2018/07/fisa_documents_reveal_fbi_collusion?amp>

The FBI used oppo research paid for by the Democrats as justification for government spying on a political opponent and other Americans.

Fusion GPS had hired scholar and professor Nellie Ohr as a “paid Russian expert.” Nellie Ohr happens to be married to Bruce Ohr, deputy attorney general in the Justice Department. Bruce Ohr is alleged to have passed his wife’s anti-Trump research to the FBI. He was demoted for failing to disclose not only his wife’s employment with Fusion GPS, but also his own meetings with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson.

Our media’s valiant efforts to distract us notwithstanding, information continues to seep out that underscores how badly a housecleaning is needed in Washington, D.C.

🇺🇸 **Worker pay rate hits highest level since 2008** Published 9:24 AM ET Tue, 31 July 2018 Updated 7:10 PM ET Tue, 31 July 2018
*CNBC* - <https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/07/31/worker-pay-rate-hits-highest-level-since-2008.html>

The employment cost index rose 2.8 percent for the second quarter, the biggest increase since the third quarter of 2008.

Wage growth has been the missing component of the economic recovery, though the ECI has been steadily rising over the past year and a half.

The Federal Reserve meets this week and is unlikely to increase interest rates, though the rise in compensation will factor into discussions.

🇺🇸 **Private payrolls boom in July, increasing by 219,000 vs 185,000 estimate: ADP** by Fred Imbert Wednesday, August 1st
*CNBC.com* - <https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/08/01/adp-private-payrolls-increase-by-219000-vs-185000-estimate.html>

Jobs in the U.S. increased by 219,000 in July, while economists polled by Reuters expected a gain of 185,000.

July's job gains were the best since February, when 241,000 jobs were added.

"The job market is booming, impacted by the deficit-financed tax cuts and increases in government spending," says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics.

🇺🇸 **President Trump Is No Friend to 3D Printed Plastic Guns, Says WH Press Secretary**
*Reason* - <http://archive.is/zYuLL>

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed on Wednesday that President Trump supports bans against 3D-printed plastic guns.

During a Wednesday press conference, Sanders answered a question about the president's support of 3D printed plastic guns by saying that the DOJ made a deal without Trump's approval. Still, Trump approved of the 1988 legislation that banned such devices if they are untraceable by metal detectors.

"This administration supports the decades-old legislation already on the books that prohibit the wholly ownership of a plastic gun," she told reporters.

Following the court's Tuesday decision, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson announced that his website, DEFCAD.com, would go dark in compliance. Wilson removed the plans from the internet. Since that time, a mirror site from called CodeIsFreeSpeech.com appeared. Considering that the advocacy groups behind the new site were not listed as defendants in the suit, they are free from the ruling.
-----------------

🇩🇪 **Das 75%, Nearly One in Four Germans Now Come from a Migration Background**
*Breitbart* - <https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/02/nearly-one-four-germans-now-come-migration-background/>

According to new figures released by the Germany Federal Statistical Office, the number of Germans with a migration background increased by 4.4 percent in 2017 to a total of 19.3 million people — or 23.6 percent of the total population of the country, Die Welt reports.

Official numbers are often understated, realistically numbers are much worse.
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🇺🇸 **POLL: TRUMP APPROVAL 50% (OBAMA APPROVAL 45% AT SAME TIME)**
*Rasmussen Reports* - <http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/current_events/politics/prez_track_aug02>

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 50% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-nine percent (49%) disapprove.
---------------------

🇻🇪 **Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro Subject to Drone Assassination Attempt**
*Breitbart*- <https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/08/04/venezuelas-nicolas-maduro-subject-to-drone-assassination-attempt/>

According to various unconfirmed reports, Maduro was the subject of an assassination attempt by a drone loaded with C4 but was not harmed. He was taken away by his security teams. It is unclear whether there were any casualties in the incident.
---------------------

🇻🇪 **Maduro assassination attempt or false flag?**
https://twitter.com/KalebPrime/status/1025870016477097986

---------------------

🇺🇸 **Details Surface About Chinese Spy Who Worked For Sen. Feinstein**
*5KPIX CBS SF BayArea* - <https://archive.fo/HoXmc>

New details emerged Wednesday about how a mole for the government of communist China managed to stay by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s side for nearly 20 years.

It happened five years ago, but additional information is just surfacing about how the Bay Area senator’s office was infiltrated by a Chinese spy.

Now, all eyes are on Chinese intelligence in the Bay Area after the website Politico reported last week that a staffer for Senator Feinstein turned out to be a Chinese spy who reported back to the government officials about local politics.

On Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle uncovered additional details in a column written by reporters Phil Matier and Andy Ross.

The column revealed that the Chinese spy was Feinstein’s driver who also served as a gofer in her Bay Area office and was a liaison to the Asian-American community.
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🇺🇸 **Liberal Hero Chomsky Admits "Israeli Intervention In US Elections Overwhelms Anything Russia Has Done"**
🇮🇱 *ZeroHedge/Democracy Now* - <https://archive.fo/W6FNb>

As the mainstream media (and even the leftist politicians) begin to back quietly away from the "collusion" narrative, they remain increasingly focused on Russia's "evil" efforts at "meddling" in the US election and "interfering with our democracy," or some such hysterical phrase.

And that is what makes the comments by mainstay of world-renowned political dissident and liberal-thinking hero Noam Chomsky's comments in the following interview with Democracy Now so 'awkward' for the Trump-hating members of society.

```...so, take, say, the huge issue of interference in our pristine elections. Did the Russians interfere in our elections? An issue of overwhelming concern in the media. I mean, in most of the world, that’s almost a joke.
First of all, if you’re interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support.
Israeli intervention in U.S. elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done...
I mean, even to the point where the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president’s policies - what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015....```-----------------

🇺🇸 **Master of the Universe Google’s video platform YouTube has deleted the channel of InfoWars host Alex Jones shortly after Facebook and Apple removed InfoWars content from their platforms.**
*Breitbart* - <https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/08/06/youtube-deletes-infowars-alex-jones-channel/>

Coordinated purge and censorship is now the new norm. The Alex Jones Channel has been permanently DELETED by YouTube.

Apple, Spotify, Facebook and now Google (which owns YouTube) - all within 12 hours of each other.

A coordinated purge. This is a total abuse of power.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Facebook denies claims it's after users' financial data after report reveals the firm has been asking US banks to share information, including account balances and card transactions**
*Daily Mail* - <https://archive.fo/ERKqX>

Facebook is weighing partnerships with U.S. banks to offer services on Messenger.

The social media giant has approached JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and U.S. Bancorp in the past year about sharing customers' financial data, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources close to the situation.

Data would reportedly include things like users' card transactions and checking account balances.

However, Facebook has since denied that it's interested in obtaining consumers' financial data. Instead, it hopes enhance its payment and commerce features within Messenger.

Since the report was published, Facebook had already been criticized for the rumored bank partnerships, in large part due to its poor track record of protecting user data.

'A recent Wall Street Journal story implies incorrectly that we are actively asking financial services companies for financial transaction data - this is not true,' Facebook spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana told TechCrunch.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Anonymous vows to take down, expose QAnon**
*The Hill* - <https://archive.fo/c9M5V>

The hacking collective Anonymous is pledging to expose the people behind the "QAnon" conspiracy theory.

The anarchist hacking group slammed the QAnon conspiracy as potentially dangerous and driven by a “brainless political agenda” in a video posted Sunday to what is widely considered the most reliable Anonymous Twitter account.

“We will not sit idly by while you take advantage of the misinformed and poorly educated,” the group said in the video, which was posted with the hashtags #OpQ and #OpQAnon.

The video depicts various figures with Anonymous masks acting out certain aspects of the QAnon conspiracy against a constant backdrop of the letter “Q.”

The video claims that Anonymous “knew who was responsible for Q” and thought it was funny at first. However, the group now believes the conspiracy theory has gone too far.

“Someone is going to get hurt, so we have to put our foot down and start some shit with you all,” the group said in the video.
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<:shiiiiit:348458410217308170> **66 shot, 12 fatally, in Chicago weekend shootings**
*ABC 7* - <http://archive.li/7FsXy>

A violent weekend in Chicago left 12 people dead and dozens more wounded, police said.

Chicago police said a total of 66 people were shot from 6 p.m. on Friday to midnight on Sunday and 12 of those victims have died.

The shootings were concentrated in four police districts on the South and West sides.

Among the victims were a 17-year-old girl shot in the face, and a 17-year-old boy on a bike.

Supt. Johnson said they are investigating leads on a number of the shootings, but have not made any arrests in the shootings.
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⚠ **Subpoena for messaging app 'Discord' may reveal Charlottesville white supremacists' identities: report**
*The Hill* - <http://archive.is/S5Lqc>

A subpoena filed in court on behalf of counter-protestors who were injured in last year's "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va., could potentially reveal the identities of the white supremacists who took part in the protest.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that attorneys filed a subpoena for the messaging app, Discord, with the goal of obtaining messaging and account information for over 30 anonymous users who may have participated in the rally that turned deadly.

Discord, which was launched in 2015, is an app that was used by white supremacists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other members of the alt-right movement, who hoped to keep their identities sealed, according to The Post. The newspaper added that the app allowed organizers of the rally to have private, invite-only threads that were shrouded in anonymity.

Messages on Discord have now been cited in a federal lawsuit that was filed against the Unite the Right rally's organizers, according to The Post. Attorneys for the counter protestors are claiming that the messages on the app show that organizers of the rally “conspired to commit acts of violence, intimidation and harassment.”

As the anniversary approaches, the city announced last month that it would shut down roads, parks and facilities as a safety precaution, The Daily Progress reported.
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🇩🇪 **German couple jailed for selling son to paedophiles on dark net**
*BBC* - <https://archive.fo/4M8yM>

A woman who sold her son to paedophiles on the dark net for sex has been jailed for 12 years and six months by a court in southern Germany.

The Freiburg court also jailed her partner, the boy's stepfather, for 12 years. The boy was nine when the trial began in June.

Berrin T, 48, and Christian L, 39, are both German nationals, living in Staufen near Freiburg.

The dark net is an internet area beyond the reach of mainstream search engines.

On Monday the court jailed a Spanish man for 10 years for sexually abusing the boy repeatedly.

Five other men have also been prosecuted in connection with the abuse.

The couple were found guilty of rape, aggravated sexual assault of children, forced prostitution and distribution of child pornography.
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🇸🇦 **Saudi Arabia Crucifies Myanmar Man for Theft and Murder**
*Bloomberg* - <http://archive.is/E8gAU>

Saudi Arabia executed and crucified a Myanmar man in the holy city of Mecca on Wednesday in a rare form of punishment reserved for the most egregious crimes.

Elias Abulkalaam Jamaleddeen was accused of breaking into the home of a woman from Myanmar, firing a weapon in it then repeatedly stabbing her, which led to her death, the official Saudi Press Agency reported, citing an Interior Ministry statement. He was also accused of stealing weapons and trying to kill another man whose home he broke into, as well as attempting to rape a woman.

The ruling was supported by the country’s supreme court and endorsed by the king.

Crucifixions in Saudi Arabia entail hanging a body in public after an execution, and are unusual. A Yemeni man was crucified in 2010 for raping and killing a girl and shooting dead her father.
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🇺🇸 **Eric Clanton takes 3-year probation deal in Berkeley rally bike lock assault case**
*Berkeleyside* - <https://archive.fo/R4oHt>

A former East Bay college philosophy professor who was charged with four counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon, causing great bodily injury, has taken a deal resulting in three years of probation for an attack at a Berkeley protest last year, court records reveal.

Eric Clanton had been linked by police to violent assaults with a metal bike lock during a “free speech” rally in Berkeley on April 15, 2017. Before his arrest, Clanton had been “outed” online, on the website 4chan, as someone who used a bike lock to strike a man in the head. The assault was captured in a video clip (below) that drew widespread attention and anger after it was posted on YouTube.

Wednesday, Clanton was supposed to have had his preliminary hearing, where a judge decides whether there’s enough evidence in a case for it to move ahead to trial. Instead, there was no hearing, and information about Clanton’s plea deal became available online.

According to Alameda County Superior Court records, Clanton entered a “no contest” plea Wednesday to one misdemeanor battery charge. The felony charges against him were dismissed, and an allegation that he had caused serious bodily injury was stricken. A misdemeanor charge that Clanton wore a mask during the commission of the crime also was dropped.

Clanton’s three years of probation begin Wednesday and last through Aug. 8, 2021.

Police said, previously, that Clanton attacked at least three people with a metal U-lock during the April 15 rally in and around Civic Center Park. Court papers later revealed that Clanton struck at least seven people in the head, according to authorities. One person received a head laceration that required five staples to fix. Another was uninjured but had a piece of a helmet broken off. A third was struck across the neck and back, police wrote.
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🇺🇸 **Turkis Lira Crashes, Trump Slaps Tariffs on Steel Aluminum, Roach Sultan Erdogan Praises Allah**
*Breitbart* - <https://www.breitbart.com/news/turkey-lira-crashes-as-trump-piles-on-pressure/>

Compounding the lira’s agony, President Donald Trump said he had doubled steel and aluminium tariffs on Turkey, noting that relations between the NATO allies were “not very good”.

The lira was trading at 6.6 to the dollar at 1335 GMT, a loss on the day of 19 percent. A month ago the Turkish Lira was 4.50 per USD , now currently 6.48 to 6.63 per USD.

Erdogan had raised eyebrows Thursday when he appeared to invoke divine intervention, saying: “If they have dollars, we have our people, we have our right and we have Allah!”

🇺🇸 **Google tracks your movements, like it or not**
*AP* - <https://archive.fo/qc9dG>

Google wants to know where you go so badly that it records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to.

An Associated Press investigation found that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so.

Computer-science researchers at Princeton confirmed these findings at the AP’s request.

For the most part, Google is upfront about asking permission to use your location information. An app like Google Maps will remind you to allow access to location if you use it for navigating. If you agree to let it record your location over time, Google Maps will display that history for you in a “timeline” that maps out your daily movements.

Storing your minute-by-minute travels carries privacy risks and has been used by police to determine the location of suspects — such as a warrant that police in Raleigh, North Carolina, served on Google last year to find devices near a murder scene. So the company lets you “pause” a setting called Location History.

Google says that will prevent the company from remembering where you’ve been. Google’s support page on the subject states: “You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

That isn’t true. Even with Location History paused, some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking. (It’s possible, although laborious, to delete it .)
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🌎 **Hackers ‘to steal MILLIONS from cash machines within days’: FBI warns of imminent mass attack on world’s ATMs**
*Daily Mail* - <https://archive.fo/7t27R>

America's intelligence chiefs have warned banks of a major hacking threat to cash machines worldwide in the next few days.

The FBI sent out a confidential alert on Friday to warn that cyber criminals are planning a global 'cash-out scheme' using malware to take over ATMs and steal millions of dollars.

Banks were warned that they could fall victim to an 'unlimited operation' in which millions of dollars could be withdrawn from cash machines.

Smaller banks with less sophisticated security systems are thought to be most vulnerable to an attack using the 'jackpotting' technique, the Daily Telegraph reports.

The warning said: 'The FBI has obtained unspecified reporting indicating cyber criminals are planning to conduct a global Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cash-out scheme in the coming days, likely associated with an unknown card issuer breach.'
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🇺🇸 **A growing number of California detainees are Indians crossing through Mexico to seek asylum**
*LA Times* - <https://archive.fo/dIhsK>

On a recent visit to the federal prison in Victorville, U.S. Rep. Mark Takano was caught by surprise. Of the hundreds of immigrants detained there, he learned, possibly 40% had traveled from India seeking asylum.

“They said they were often bullied into doing things that were immoral,” Takano said. “They would have to carry drugs, perpetrate violence against others.”

According to immigration officials and attorneys, there has been an increase in recent years of Indian nationals crossing into the U.S. through Mexico — although they represent a small percentage of those detained overall. Indian citizens are among thousands of migrants from Haiti, Africa and Asia now trekking across Latin America, taking advantage of travel routes forged by Latino immigrants.

By early August, about 380 of the 680 migrants at the Victorville facility were Indian nationals, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, sent there as civil rather than criminal detainees pending the outcome of their immigration cases.

In addition, about 40% of the detainees at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Imperial Valley facility are from India, a spokeswoman said. Nearly 20% of detainees at ICE’s Adelanto processing center are Indian.

So far during the 2018 fiscal year, 4,197 of those arrested by Border Patrol agents have been Indian nationals, according to data from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
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🇬🇧 **IT'S HAPPENING WESTMINSTER TERROR ATTACK, DRIVER MOWS DOWN PEDESTRIANS OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT**
*InfoWars* - <https://www.infowars.com/watch-live-westminster-terror-attack-driver-mows-down-pedestrians-outside-parliament/>

A vehicle struck multiple people outside Westminster Tuesday morning and UK police say they are treating the incident as a terrorist act. One witness said, “It was, in my opinion, something planned and something very sinister.”

<:trump:284711336934375425> **Turkey to Boycott U.S. Electronics in Retaliation Against Sanctions**
*WSJ* - <http://archive.is/Bkhh3>

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that Turkey would boycott U.S. electronic goods, the latest move in escalating jousting between Ankara and Washington that has sent the Turkish lira to record lows.

The boycott, which Mr. Erdogan announced in a speech celebrating the 17th anniversary of his ruling party, is part of a wider campaign Turkey has launched to retaliate against U.S. sanctions, and which has spread to places from the advertising market to beauty parlors.

“We are going to enforce a boycott on U.S. electronic goods,” Mr. Erdogan said. “If they have iPhones, there is also Samsung,” he said, referring to the South Korean cellphone maker.

Turkey and the U.S. are locked in a bitter dispute over the fate of an American pastor. The White House has vowed to pile pressure on Turkey until the Presbyterian minister, Andrew Brunson, who faces terrorism charges and as much as 35 years in prison, had been allowed to return home.

Turkish authorities say justice must run its course and have slammed tariffs that the U.S. introduced this week on some Turkish imports as an “act of economic war.”
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🇺🇸 **Wake County man sentenced for illegally voting in U.S. elections**
*ABC11* - <http://archive.is/p6ciA>

A Wake County man was sentenced to four months in prison for illegally voting in the 2012 and 2016 elections.

Roberto Hernandez-Cuarenta, 57, of Zebulon, was convicted on two counts of voting by alien.

Although Hernandez-Cuarenta is a legal resident of the United States, the native of Mexico is not a U.S. citizen, rendering him ineligible to cast ballots in U.S. elections.

According to authorities, Hernandez-Cuarenta, "knowing he was not a United States citizen, did knowingly vote in two elections held in part for the purpose of electing a candidate for the Office of President, Vice President, and Member of the House of Representative."

"The right to vote is a precious privilege available only to citizens of the United States," said Robert J. Higdon Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina. "When a non-citizen votes in a federal election it serves to dilute and devalue the vote of American citizens and places the decision-making authority of the American electorate in the hands of those who have no right to make those choices."

Hernandez-Cuarenta was sentenced to time served on both counts which is four months of imprisonment.
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🇸🇪 **Gang of masked “youths” rampaged through Sweden’s second-largest city Monday night, setting cars ablaze in an attack described as “extremely organised”**
*Breitbart* - <https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/14/military-operation-masked-gangs-set-100-cars-ablaze-across-swedish-no-go-zones/>

Police chose not to arrest the “young people” at the scene and have since contacted their parents, reports state.

“We have already started talking to parents of the young people who were active in the morning. We chose not to seize someone on the spot but have identified them, and talked with them.”

Fires were also reported on a smaller scale in Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city.

🇺🇸 **Christine Hallquist, a Transgender Woman, Wins Vermont Governor’s Primary**
*New York Times* - <https://archive.fo/5ksEL>

On a cloudy afternoon this summer, Christine Hallquist, a former utility executive from Vermont, listened closely as Danica Roem, the Virginia state delegate who won national recognition when she became the first transgender person elected to her state’s Legislature, offered tips as the pair canvassed a stark residential neighborhood here.

Ms. Hallquist is transgender, too, but Ms. Roem’s advice had nothing to do with gender identity. Try a light, rhythmic knock. Leave a handwritten note with campaign literature if no one is home. Try to earn every vote.

“I have so much to learn,” Ms. Hallquist said, duly incorporating Ms. Roem’s lessons with each new knock.

On Tuesday, those lessons paid off, and Ms. Hallquist, a Democrat, made history of her own. She became the first transgender candidate to be nominated for a governorship by a major party, beating three other candidates in Vermont’s Democratic primary, according to The Associated Press.

“Tonight, we made history,” Ms. Hallquist said, addressing supporters at an election night party in Burlington. She added, “I am so proud to be the face of the Democrats tonight.”

It is a remarkable milestone, even for an election year already dominated by an influx of women and a record number of candidates who identify as lesbian, gay, transgender or queer.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Christian baker vindicated by SCOTUS back in court for not baking a gender transitioning cake**
*Washington Times* - <https://archive.fo/b5TmD>

The Christian baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple and was vindicated by the Supreme Court earlier this year is mounting another legal challenge this week after refusing to bake a gender-transitioning cake.

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in June that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission discriminated against baker Jack Phillips for his religious beliefs, an attorney requested he create a cake that was pink on the inside and blue on the outside to represent a gender transition from male to female.

As a Christian, Mr. Phillips would not make the cake since it conflicted with his beliefs, which was his same reasoning for refusing to bake the same-sex couple’s wedding cake.

The state of Colorado has come after Mr. Phillips again, suggesting state law requires him to bake the gender change cake.

It’s the newest complaint mounted against him, which has forced Mr. Phillips to file a federal lawsuit Tuesday.

“The state of Colorado is ignoring the message of the U.S. Supreme Court by continuing to single out Jack for punishment and to exhibit hostility toward his religious beliefs,” said Kristen Waggoner, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, a religious liberty law firm defending Mr. Phillips.
-----------------

Why dont they just go to a different fucking bakery?

you're a biggit and I want to cause problems <:REEE:281041868056166401> <:REEE:281041868056166401> <:REEE:281041868056166401> <:REEE:281041868056166401> <:REEE:281041868056166401> <:REEE:281041868056166401> <:REEE:281041868056166401>

<https://sputniknews.com/news/201808151067221648-Trump-Revokes-Brennan-Security-Clearance/> **White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Wednesday that US President Donald Trump is revoking the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan**

**LIVE** <https://video.foxnews.com/v/5822530293001/?%23sp=watch-live#sp=watch-live> Sarah Huckabee

<https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1029798446650277888/video/1> **Chuck Schumer, I agree! - Trump** Tweet

🇺🇸 **Dow surges more than 350 points on resumption of China trade talks, Walmart 10% jump**
*CNBC* - <https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/us-markets-us-china-trade-developments-earnings-data-in-focus.html>

Stocks traded sharply higher on Thursday on renewed hope that a resolution to a trade dispute with China could be on the horizon. Investors also cheered strong quarterly results from Walmart.

Weekly jobless claims totaled 212,000 last week, slightly below than the Reuters estimate of 215,000. Meanwhile, housing starts totaled 1.168 million in July, well below the expected 1.26 million.

*China this China that, the US holds all the cards when it comes with negotiating trade with China, China holds 2tril in dollars, can't even dump or sell them off, their currency will strengthen against the dollar. Chinese banks are ready to implode as housing prices have dropped in all but 2 cities in China. Trump is a business negotiating genius.* -comment from some a'hole on OH Discord ikillu

🇨🇳 **Chinese bombers likely training for US strikes: Pentagon**
🇺🇸 *Daily Mail/AFP* - <https://archive.is/5v1Xh>

Chinese bombers are likely training for strikes against US and allied targets in the Pacific, according to a new Pentagon report that also details how Beijing is transforming its ground forces to "fight and win."

The annual report to Congress, released Thursday, highlights China's growing military, economic and diplomatic clout and how Beijing is leveraging this to rapidly build its international footprint and establish regional dominance.

In the case of China's air power, the report states that Chinese bombers are developing capabilities to hit targets as far from China as possible.

"Over the last three years, the PLA (People's Liberation Army) has rapidly expanded its overwater bomber operating areas, gaining experience in critical maritime regions and likely training for strikes against US and allied targets," the document states, noting how China is pushing its operations out into the Pacific.

The PLA may demonstrate the "capability to strike US and allied forces and military bases in the western Pacific Ocean, including Guam," the report says. With nearly a million troops, the PLA is the largest standing ground force in the world.
-----------------

🇮🇳 **ATM hackers steal £10m (~$13m USD) across 28 countries in audacious bank heist**
🌎 *Independent* - <https://archive.is/iBELd>

Hackers with suspected ties to North Korea have syphoned more than 940 million rupees (£10.5 million) from ATMs around the world in a highly-coordinated attack.

The heist on Cosmos Bank took place across several days, beginning on 11 August, just a day after the FBI warned cyber criminals could be planning a highly-coordinated attack on cash machines.

Hackers carried out the attack by infecting the bank's debit card payment system with malware, which allowed them to self-approve transactions. Fake cards were then used to withdraw money through roughly 14,800 ATM transactions across 28 countries.

Indian media, who first reported the breach, linked the attack to similar hacks previously carried out by Lazarus, a prolific hacking group with ties to North Korea.

"In two days, hackers withdrew [funds] from various ATMs in 28 countries, including Canada, Hong Kong and a few ATMs in India," Cosmos Bank chairman Milind Kale told local reporters.
-----------------

🌎 **Google clarifies location-tracking policy**
*Associated Press* - <https://archive.is/px1Pw>

Google clarified how it tracks users even if they’ve disabled a “location history” setting, revising a help page that erroneously said turning off that setting would stop the tracking.

The change came three days after an Associated Press investigation revealed that several Google apps and websites store user location even if users have turned off Location History. Google has not changed its location-tracking practice in that regard.

But its help page for the Location History setting now states: “This setting does not affect other location services on your device.” It also acknowledges that “some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other services, like Search and Maps.”

Previously, the page stated: “With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.” The AP observed that the change occurred midday Thursday, a finding confirmed by Internet Archive snapshots taken earlier in the day.

The AP investigation found that even with Location History turned off, Google stores user location when, for instance, the Google Maps app is opened, or when users conduct Google searches that aren’t related to location. Automated searches of the local weather on Android phones also store the phone’s whereabouts.

In a Thursday statement to the AP, Google said: “We have been updating the explanatory language about Location History to make it more consistent and clear across our platforms and help centers.” The statement contrasted with a statement Google sent to the AP several days ago that said in part, “We provide clear descriptions of these tools.”
-----------------

🇯🇵 Tokyo men getting foot massages from cute anime VR girls – but they’re actually being rubbed by GUYS
🇬🇧 The Sun - <http://archive.li/bUvyT>

Tokyo's Toranoana VR Relaxation massage shop is set to open within the next year.

But a trial location has already been opened in the city's seedy Akihabara district, as spotted by tech blog Panora.

The paid-for offering lets you don a virtual reality headset, simulating a computer-generated massage parlour.

In walks a cartoon woman, ready and waiting to give your feet a good seeing to.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Website Promised Free Anti-Antifa Shirts. Alt-Right Signed Up. It Was a Trap.**
*The Daily Beast* - <https://www.thedailybeast.com/website-promised-free-anti-antifa-shirts-alt-right-signed-up-it-was-a-trap>

Posing as an ally of the ‘National March Against Far-Left Violence,’ someone convinced far-right supporters to give up their personal information—then doxxed them.

Now the far-right is trying to get their apparent anti-fascist trolls arrested.

Privacy-savvy marchers might have known to avoid a web form asking for their information. The far right and its opponents often wage controversial doxxing campaigns against each other, with fascists and anti-fascists posting their rivals’ personal details online in attempt to intimidate them or reveal their identities.

<:trump:284711336934375425> @realDonaldTrump - https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1030777074959757313

https://youtu.be/0sdziX-Q_Lo

🇺🇸 **David Hogg to ‘Old’ Nancy Pelosi: ‘Move the Fuck off the Plate and Let Us Take Control’**
*Breitbart* - <https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/08/20/david-hogg-old-nancy-pelosi-move-let-us-take-control/>

NYMag indicates Hogg is wearied by the “old” Democrats who keep hanging onto their offices. He mentioned Pelosi in particular, and said pointedly, “Nancy Pelosi is old.”

🇺🇸 **UNC students knock down Silent Sam Confederate statue**
*CNN* - <https://archive.fo/bEWwU>

A crowd of about 250 protesters on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's campus knocked over the controversial Silent Sam Confederate statue, according to the university.

A video and pictures from a student shows the statue coming down as students chant "I believe that we will win."

Video footage from CNN affiliate WRAL-TV shows students putting up poles and banners around the statue during daylight. By nightfall, video from WRAL shows the statue falling down and students cheering. Students could also be seen kicking Silent Sam's head and putting dirt on the statue.

https://twitter.com/RyMiko/status/1031714613962985473

-----------------

🇿🇦 **South Africa begins seizing white-owned farms**
*News.com.au* - <https://archive.fo/suD7H>

Local newspaper City Press reports two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo are the first to be targeted for unilateral seizure after negotiations with the owners to purchase the properties stalled.

While the government says it intends to pay, owners Akkerland Boerdery wanted 200 million rand ($18.7 million) for the land — they’re being offered just 20 million rand ($1.87 million).

“Notice is hereby given that a terrain inspection will be held on the farms on April 5, 2018 at 10am in order to conduct an audit of the assets and a handover of the farm’s keys to the state,” a letter sent to the owners earlier this year said.

Akkerland Boerdery obtained an urgent injunction to prevent eviction until a court had ruled on the issue, but the Department of Rural Development and Land Affairs is opposing the application.

“What makes the Akkerland case unique is that they apparently were not given the opportunity to first dispute the claim in court, as the law requires,” AgriSA union spokeswoman Annelize Crosby told the paper.
-----------------

🇰🇵 **North Korea to let U.N. aviation agency officials conduct on-site missile safety inspection**
*The Japan Times* - <https://archive.fo/65BEB>

North Korea has agreed to allow International Civil Aviation Organization staff to conduct an on-site inspection to ensure the safety of international flights from the country’s missile launches, according to officials with the Montreal-based U.N. agency.

An official with North Korea’s General Administration of Civil Aviation gave the assurance when high-ranking ICAO representatives visited the country in May, ICAO officials said.

The 192-member ICAO is now planning to send its personnel next year in order to verify what measures North Korea, which is a member of the group, has taken to keep unannounced missile launches in check as it pledged, they said.

After last May’s trip, the ICAO said North Korea had promised to suspend activities that represented a danger to civil aviation, including the test-firings of long-range missiles without prior notice. Pyongyang conducted numerous unannounced missile tests last year, posing an enormous threat to airplanes flying in the region.

This danger was highlighted in July last year, when an Air France airliner flying from Tokyo to Paris flew past an area where a ballistic missile splashed into the Sea of Japan off Hokkaido just several minutes later.

North Korea’s nod to an on-site inspection is seen as an effort by the isolated country to win credibility for its pledge to halt such launches as it works to improve ties with the international community.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Russian hackers targeted U.S. conservative think-tanks, says Microsoft**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/50PCX>

Hackers linked to Russia’s government tried to target the websites of two right-wing U.S. think-tanks, suggesting they were broadening their attacks in the build-up to November elections, Microsoft said.

The software giant said it thwarted the attempts last week by taking control of sites that hackers had designed to mimic the pages of The International Republican Institute and The Hudson Institute. Users were redirected to fake addresses where they were asked to enter usernames and passwords.

There was no immediate comment from Russian authorities, but the Kremlin was expected to address the report later on Tuesday. It has regularly dismissed accusations that it has used hackers to influence U.S. elections and political opinion.

Casting such allegations as part of an anti-Russian campaign designed to justify new sanctions on Russia, it says it wants to improve not worsen ties with Washington.

The International Republican Institute has a roster of high-profile Republican board members, including Senator John McCain of Arizona who has criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s interactions with Russia, and Moscow’s rights record.

The Hudson Institute, another conservative group, has hosted discussions on topics including cybersecurity, according to Microsoft. It has also examined the rise of kleptocracy, especially in Russia and has been critical of the Russian government, the New York Times reported.
-----------------

https://youtu.be/XYjqBqrZVTY

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1032023888748851200

🌎 **Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to 1**
*Washington Post* - <https://archive.fo/xmc9p>

Facebook has begun to assign its users a reputation score, predicting their trustworthiness on a scale from zero to 1.

The previously unreported ratings system, which Facebook has developed over the past year, shows that the fight against the gaming of tech systems has evolved to include measuring the credibility of users to help identify malicious actors.

Facebook developed its reputation assessments as part of its effort against fake news, Tessa Lyons, the product manager who is in charge of fighting misinformation, said in an interview. The company, like others in tech, has long relied on its users to report problematic content — but as Facebook has given people more options, some users began falsely reporting items as untrue, a new twist on information warfare for which it had to account.

It’s “not uncommon for people to tell us something is false simply because they disagree with the premise of a story or they’re intentionally trying to target a particular publisher,” Lyons said.

Users’ trustworthiness score between zero and 1 isn’t meant to be an absolute indicator of a person’s credibility, Lyons said, nor is there is a single unified reputation score that users are assigned. Rather, the score is one measurement among thousands of new behavioral clues that Facebook now takes into account as it seeks to understand risk. Facebook is also monitoring which users have a propensity to flag content published by others as problematic and which publishers are considered trustworthy by users.
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🇨🇳 **BuzzFeed reporter 'effectively' ejected from China: Foreign media**
*Channel News Asia* - <https://archive.fo/QWtuT>

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China said on Wednesday (Aug 22) that the foreign ministry had "effectively" ejected BuzzFeed News's Beijing bureau chief from the country after declining to renew her visa.

Megha Rajagopalan, who is American and had been in China for six years, said on Twitter that the foreign ministry had "declined to issue me a new journalist visa" in May.

"They say this is a process thing, we are not totally clear why," wrote Rajagopalan, who left the country in late February.

Rajagopalan has reported extensively on China's security crackdown in the far-west region of Xinjiang, where rights groups say hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim ethnic Uighurs are held in re-education camps.

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China said in a statement that she had "conducted herself according to the highest journalistic standards while in China".

The foreign ministry "declined to give a clear and transparent reason for denying her a visa", it said.
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🇺🇸 ** Smoking cannabis ages the brain by an average of 2.8 YEARS - compared to four years in schizophrenics, major study finds**
Smoking cannabis ages the brain by an average of 2.8 YEARS - compared to four years in schizophrenics, major study finds
(archive.is and archive.fo are down)
dailymail .co .uk/health/article-6086073/Smoking-cannabis-ages-brain-average-2-8-YEARS.html

Smoking cannabis ages the brain by an average of 2.8 years, new research suggests.

This is compared to four years in schizophrenia patients, according to the largest study of its kind. Brain ageing is defined as reduced blood flow through the organ.

Excessive alcohol also ages the organ by 0.6 years, the research adds.

Lead author Dr Daniel Amen, founder of Amen Clinics, said: 'The cannabis abuse finding was especially important, as our culture is starting to see marijuana as an innocuous substance. This study should give us pause about it.'

Reduced brain blood flow has previously been linked to stroke and dementia.
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🇨🇭 **Credit Suisse freezes $5 billion of Russian money due to U.S. sanctions**
🇷🇺 *Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/JTtjw>

One of Switzerland’s largest banks, Credit Suisse, has frozen roughly 5 billion Swiss francs ($5 billion) of money linked to Russia to avoid falling foul of U.S. sanctions, according to its accounts, further increasing pressure on Moscow.

The move by Credit Suisse, which owned aircraft surrendered by Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska and had lent money to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg before the sanctions, underscores a widespread fear among banks of reprisals from Washington for working with targeted Russian individuals and entities.

For Russia’s elite, such steps could close off an important avenue for finance as well as a safe haven for billions of rubles of their wealth.

“Credit Suisse works with international regulators wherever it does business to ensure compliance with sanctions, including compliance with sanctions involving Russia,” said a spokeswoman for the bank, which did not identify the owners of the money.

Long popular with wealthy Russians for its combination of bank secrecy, political stability and glitzy ski resorts such as Zermatt and St. Moritz, Switzerland has become one of the most important destinations for money leaving Russia.

Roughly $6.2 billion, or 14 percent of total Russian cross-border outflows, went to Switzerland in 2017 — almost three times as much as went to the United States, according to Russian central bank data.
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**KFC restaurant hid Arizona-Mexico drug smuggling tunnel, officials say**
🇺🇸 *FOX News* - <http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/08/23/kfc-restaurant-hid-arizona-mexico-drug-smuggling-tunnel-officials-say.html>

Hidden beneath the bleak exterior of a fried chicken restaurant in the Southwest lurked the infrastructure of a sophisticated drug organization shipping meth, cocaine and heroin to the Arizona streets, officials said Wednesday.

No, this is not the original pitch for "Breaking Bad."

🇺🇸 **UNC Board of Governors Member: Toppled ‘Silent Sam’ Confederate Statue Will Be Reinstalled**
*The Daily Beast/WNCN* - <https://archive.fo/vKvs1>

Three people have been charged in connection to the “Silent Sam” Confederate statue that was toppled Monday on the University of North Carolina’s campus. The three individuals are reportedly “not affiliated with UNC-Chapel Hill” and will face “charges of riot and defacing a public monument,” WGHP reports. Meanwhile, a member of the UNC System Board of Governors said the statue would be reinstalled within 90 days. Thom Goolsby, a member of the board, posted on Twitter Thursday saying that the statue of the Confederate solider will return to campus “as required by state law,” WNCN reports. “Criminals who destroyed state property at UNC and police who did nothing will be held accountable,” Goolsby wrote. In a YouTube video, Goolsby said that the school “will make sure the laws of our state are enforced... We will not allow anarchy to reign on our campuses.” Goolsby is referring to a 2015 law that states an “object of remembrance” can only be moved for restoration or for “construction, renovation, or reconfiguration of buildings, open spaces, parking, or transportation projects.” On Thursday, the state’s historical commission also reportedly “voted to keep Confederate monuments on the North Carolina Capitol grounds.”
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🇺🇸 **John McCain Ends Treatment for Brain Cancer**
*The Daily Beast* - <https://archive.fo/wCVcZ>

Sen. John McCain has stopped medical treatment for brain cancer, his family said in a Friday statement. “Last summer, Senator John McCain shared with Americans the news our family already knew: He had been diagnosed with an aggressive glioblastoma, and the prognosis was serious. In the year since, John has surpassed expectations for his survival. But the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict. With his usual strength of will, he has now chosen to discontinue medical treatment,” the statement declared. “Our family is immensely grateful for the support and kindness of all his caregivers over the last year, and for the continuing outpouring of concern and affection from John’s many friends and associates, and the many thousands of people who are keeping him in their prayers. God bless and thank you all.” McCain, 81, has served as a Republican senator from Arizona since 1987, when he replaced Barry Goldwater.
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🇺🇸 **T-Mobile breach may have impacted 2 million customers**
*CBS News* - <https://archive.fo/pQmD5>

T-Mobile is warning of a security breach that may have exposed the data of millions of customers.

The hack, which occurred Monday, may have compromised information including names, zip codes, phone numbers, email address, account numbers and account types, the nation's third-largest wireless provider said in a statement.

The company's security team shut down the intrusion, and financial information such as credit card and Social Security numbers was not exposed.

Affected customers have either been notified or would be shortly, T-Mobile stated.

A spokesperson confirmed in an email that the breach affected about 3 percent of T-Mobile's 77 million customers, or 2 million people.

The security incident is only the latest at T-Mobile. In May, researchers detected a bug in the company's website that allowed anyone to access the personal data of customers with just a phone number.
-----------------

<:trump:284711336934375425> **McCain died**
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1033509445127598083

S

🇻🇳 **Vietnam demands Monsanto compensate Agent Orange victims after US cancer ruling precedent**
*RT* - <https://archive.fo/LPMcw>

Following the unprecedented $289mn verdict against Monsanto in California, Hanoi is seeking justice for victims of exposure to the Agent Orange – the notorious chemical the firm supplied to the US military during the Vietnam War.

After a San Francisco jury proved Monsanto not invincible and ordered the chemical giant to pay $289 million to a school worker who argued he got terminal cancer after using its Roundup herbicide, Vietnam has also demanded compensation from the St. Louis-based company.

“The verdict serves as a legal precedent which refutes previous claims that the herbicides made by Monsanto and other chemical corporations in the US and provided for the US army in the war are harmless,” deputy foreign ministry spokesperson Nguyen Phuong Tra said Thursday. “Vietnam has suffered tremendous consequences from the war, especially with regard to the lasting and devastating effects of toxic chemicals, including Agent Orange.”

Around three million people in Vietnam were exposed to Agent Orange during a brutal chemical warfare campaign between 1961 and 1971, in which 12 million gallons of herbicide produced by Monsanto Corporation, among others, were dropped over the jungle to defoliate it. Because of such a high level of exposure to dioxin, a byproduct found in Agent Orange, millions of Vietnamese continue to suffer health conditions, often resulting in deformities which are passed through gene mutations to future generations.

Monsanto, which has never acknowledged its role in the devastation, argues that Agent Orange “was only produced for, and used by, the government,” noting that Monsanto was just one of nine wartime government contractors who manufactured the same toxin from 1965 to 1969.
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🇺🇸 Girl Loses NASA Internship Over Insult to ‘October Sky’ Legend—He’s Still Helping Her
The Observer - <http://archive.li/MIg9X>

It’s not clear what Naomi H’s full last name is (she has since locked her Twitter account). The poster likely assumed she was a furry because of the anime in her Twitter avatar (which has since been replaced with a photo of a real life deer).

But regardless, Naomi didn’t tell just any member of the National Space Council to “suck [her] dick and balls.” Homer Hickam is a NASA engineering legend.

He started out building rockets in his backyard before serving in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. Hickam then worked as an aerospace engineer for NASA, designing spacecraft and training crews.
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🇦🇫 **Head of Islamic State in Afghanistan killed, government says**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/RYvhn>

The head of Islamic State in Afghanistan, Abu Saad Erhabi, was killed in a strike on the group’s hideouts in Nangarhar province on Saturday night, authorities said on Sunday.

Ten other members of the militant group were also killed in a joint ground and air operation by Afghan and foreign forces, the National Directorate of Security in Kabul said in a statement.

A large amount of heavy and light weapons and ammunition were destroyed during raids on two Islamic State hideouts.

The jihadist group’s Amaq’s news agency carried no comment on the issue.

Lieutenant-Colonel Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said the United States carried out a strike in Afghanistan on Saturday against a “senior leader of a designated terrorist organization.”

The provincial governor of Nangarhar said Erhabi was the fourth Islamic State leader in Afghanistan to be killed since July 2017.
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**U.S. and Mexico Agree to Preliminary Nafta Deal**
*New York Times* - https://archive.is/8NZ1q

The United States and Mexico have reached agreement to revise key portions of the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement and a preliminary deal could be announced on Monday, a crucial step toward revamping a trade pact that has appeared on the brink of collapse during the past year of negotiations.

Reaching an agreement on how to revise some of the most contentious portions of what President Trump has long called the worst trade pact in history would give Mr. Trump a significant win in a trade war he has started with countries around the globe, including Mexico, Canada, the European Union and China.

Still, a preliminary agreement between the United States and Mexico would fall far short of actually revising Nafta. The preliminary agreement still excludes Canada, which is also a party to Nafta but has been absent from talks held in Washington in recent weeks.

The agreement with Mexico centers on rules governing the automobile industry, resolving a big source of friction, but leaves aside other contentious issues that affect all three countries.

🇺🇸 **Jacksonville shooter had history of mental illness and police visits to family home**
*CNN* - <http://archive.li/bwGlJ>

David Katz, the shooter who killed two people and wounded 10 others before taking his own life at an e-sports tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, on Sunday, was in treatment for psychiatric issues at least as early as the age of 12, according to family divorce records.
Katz, who was 24, was prescribed a number of psychiatric medications, including an antipsychotic, and saw "a succession of psychiatrists," according to a 2006 letter from the father's attorney. A separate 2006 court filing states that a therapist said David had experienced a "psychiatric crisis."

CNN also obtained police records that show 26 calls for service to the police from the Katz family home in Columbia, Maryland, from 1993 to 2009, for issues ranging from "mental illness" to domestic disputes. At least two of those calls involved Katz arguing with his mother, though none of the reports provided to CNN show any physical violence. The Howard County Police Department declined to release the reports from a number of the incidents, citing statutory restrictions.

Since Sunday's shooting, the family has told investigators that David Katz suffered from mental health issues, according to a law enforcement source who described the family as being very cooperative with investigators. Both parents have worked for the federal government. Richard Katz is a NASA engineer employed at the Goddard Space Flight Center outside Washington, DC, according to an agency spokesperson. Elizabeth Katz was listed as an employee of the Food and Drug Administration at the time of her divorce.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **SOURCES: China Hacked Clinton’s Private Email Server**
🇨🇳 *Daily Caller* - <https://archive.fo/eUwRR>

A Chinese-owned company operating in the Washington, D.C., area hacked Hillary Clinton’s private server throughout her term as secretary of state and obtained nearly all her emails, two sources briefed on the matter told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Chinese firm obtained Clinton’s emails in real time as she sent and received communications and documents through her personal server, according to the sources, who said the hacking was conducted as part of an intelligence operation.

The Chinese wrote code that was embedded in the server, which was kept in Clinton’s residence in upstate New York. The code generated an instant “courtesy copy” for nearly all of her emails and forwarded them to the Chinese company, according to the sources.

The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) found that virtually all of Clinton’s emails were sent to a “foreign entity,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, said at a July 12 House Committee on the Judiciary hearing. He did not reveal the entity’s identity, but said it was unrelated to Russia. (RELATED: Gohmert: Watchdog Found Clinton Emails Were Sent To ‘Foreign Entity’)

Two officials with the ICIG, investigator Frank Rucker and attorney Janette McMillan, met repeatedly with FBI officials to warn them of the Chinese intrusion, according to a former intelligence officer with expertise in cybersecurity issues, who was briefed on the matter. He spoke anonymously, as he was not authorized to publicly address the Chinese’s role with Clinton’s server.
-----------------

🌍 **South Africa withdraws white farmland redistribution bill six days after Trump warned he was closely studying the situation**
Dailymail - http://archive.is/vEOp5

South Africa has withdrawn its white farmland redistribution bill - six days after Donald Trump warned he was closely studying the situation.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) said the bill passed by parliament in 2016 enabling the state to make compulsory purchases of land to redress racial disparities in land ownership needed further consideration.

It comes after Trump criticised the country's land reform plans in a tweet that touched on the overwhelmingly white ownership of farmland in South Africa - one of the most sensitive issues in the country's post-apartheid history.
----------

🇺🇸 **Louis C.K. is Welcome Back at More Popular Comedy Clubs in NYC**
💩 *TMZ* - <http://archive.li/Z7UEe>

Louis C.K.'s surprise return to stand-up -- to the delight of some and dismay of others -- has full support from some very important people in the comedy world ... the guys running the clubs.

TMZ's learned several comedy hot spots in NYC would gladly welcome Louis back, despite his fall from grace last year after he copped to sexual misconduct.

Louis Faranda, talent exec of Carolines on Broadway, tells us ... the comedian is like a son to him -- they personally go back to the beginning of C.K.'s career -- and he's a longtime friend of the club.

Faranda adds ... "We all make bad mistakes in life and everyone deserves the right to be forgiven ... I totally understand the plight of the women he offended, [but] I also love Louie C.K. and CANNOT turn my back to him ever!!"

Likewise -- Al Martin, owner of Broadway Comedy Club and Greenwich Village Comedy Club, says ... "Everyone is entitled to a second chance. I would book Louis." C.K. has performed at his clubs in the past.
----------

🇲🇽 **Mexican Cartel Boss Offers $100K for Assassination of Breitbart Texas Writer—Arrested Within Days**
*Breitbart* - <https://archive.fo/NsbKk>

Only 48 hours after a top cartel boss in Mexico placed an assassination hit on one of the contributing writers for Breitbart Texas’s Cartel Chronicles project, Mexican military forces captured him.

This week, Cesar “El Boto” or “El Marrueco” Sepulveda Arellano, a leading member of Los Viagras Cartel, placed a $100,000 USD hit on Breitbart Texas’s Jose Luis Lara. The former founding member of the Self-Defense Movement in Michoacan writes about terrorist actions by cartels and their corrupt government enablers in that state and beyond.

The assassination order was posted on social media through various Facebook accounts. A similar threat was also spread via audio recording where El Boto declared Lara a spy for the United States.

Only 48 hours after El Boto issued the threats, the Mexican Army and Navy followed an anonymous tip to a house in Morelos–where they arrested him.

Almost immediately after authorities arrested El Boto, members of Los Viagras began signaling each other on social media with orders to delete any Facebook accounts in contact with those previously used by their captured leader.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **He’s been studying in the U.S. legally for 7 years. Bank of America froze his account anyway**
*Miami Herald* - <https://archive.fo/BJ7v2>

Saeed Moshfegh woke up earlier this month to discover the strangest thing: though he had plenty of money in his Bank of America account, he couldn’t access it.

An Iranian getting his Ph.D in physics at the University of Miami, Moshfegh used the account for everyday transactions. All he had to do to maintain the account was show proof of legal residency every six months.

“This bank doesn’t know how the immigration system works, so they didn’t accept my document,” said Moshfegh, 36.

Locked out of his account, Moshfegh couldn’t pay his rent, which was due that week. Credit card payments were suddenly rejected.

His case isn’t unique. In recent months, Bank of America has been accused of freezing or threatening to freeze customers’ accounts after asking about their legal status in the U.S.. In July, the Washington Post reported that multiple customers had been locked out of their accounts after Bank of America questioned whether the account holders were U.S. citizens or dual citizens.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Trump escalates his threats to blow up trade deals: 'I would withdraw from the WTO'**
*USA Today* - <https://archive.fo/kppMG>

President Donald Trump threatened to upend the rules of global trade on Thursday, saying he would pull out of the World Trade Organization unless it adopts rules more favorable to the United States.

“If they don’t shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO,” Trump told Bloomberg News.

Trump has long been frustrated with the WTO, which sets the standards and rules that govern other international trade agreements, and provides a forum for resolving disputes. He specifically wants the Geneva-based body to take a tougher stance on China's steel dumping and theft of U.S. intellectual property.

But Trump's remark on Thursday marks his most explicit threat to withdraw from the WTO yet.

Just last month, he expressed a desire to work with other countries to reform the WTO from within the organization. "WTO has treated the United States very badly, and I hope they change their ways," he said then. "And we're not planning anything now, but if they don't treat us properly, we will be doing something."

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later explained that while the president is frustrated by the organization, "that is not accurate that the U.S. is leaving the WTO."
-----------------

🇺🇦 **Leader of self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic killed in E. Ukraine blast**
*RT* - <https://archive.fo/TPtlh>

An explosion that rocked a cafe in central Donetsk city, in eastern Ukraine, has killed Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, and injured several other top officials.

Media reports said that Zakharchenko was severely injured as a blast hit a restaurant called ‘Separ’ in Donetsk city center. He died later in a local hospital.

“The head of the DNR, Alenksandr Zakharchenko, has died as a result of a terrorist act,” a spokesperson of the self-proclaimed republic’s administration told journalists, revealing no details of the incident.

Moscow condemned 42-year-old Zakharchenko’s murder, adding that it could be detrimental to the whole peace process in Ukraine. The death of the DNR leader could have a particularly negative impact on the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Russian Senate’s International Affairs Committee, said.

There is “every reason to believe” that Zakharchenko’s murder was orchestrated by Kiev, which “has repeatedly resorted to such methods to get rid of dissidents and undesirables,” Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said.

“Instead of abiding by the Minsk Agreements and seeking ways to resolve the internal [Ukrainian] conflict, the Kiev warmongers opted for a terrorist scenario, thus exacerbating an already tense situation in the region,” she added. The Ukrainian security service, the SBU, has denied involvement in the killing of the DNR head.
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🇺🇸 **People are threatening to boycott In-N-Out after large donation to Republican party**
🇬🇧 *MashableUK* - <http://archive.li/On4gR>

Despite its California roots, In-N-Out is far from liberal.

On Wednesday, journalist Gabe Schneider uncovered a contribution of $25,000 that the famous California-based fast food chain made to the California Republican Party just this week — and it's safe to say that some folks were not happy to learn about the political leanings of their family owned go-to burger joint.

Schneider shared a document on Twitter that details the company's contributions, which were filed on August 28. While many on Twitter stood in support of the burger chain because of their political beliefs, In-N-Out was called out by some customers.

Eric Bauman, chair of the California Democratic Party, was one of the folks online urging people to boycott the chain under the inventive hashtag #BoycottInNOut. "Let Trump and his cronies support these creeps ... perhaps animal style!," he wrote.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **FBI arrests five New Mexico compound suspects days after multiple charges were dropped**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.fo/VJCpF>

The FBI announced Friday that it had arrested all five New Mexico compound suspects, days after multiple charges were dropped. The suspects were now being charged with violating federal firearms and conspiracy laws.

The announcement comes after local prosecutors dropped charges in the death of a 3-year-old boy at the compound site. Taos County District Attorney Donald Gallegos said Friday his office would now seek grand jury indictments involving the death. Gallegos said seeking indictments would allow more time to gather evidence.

"The defendants, Jany Leveille, 35, a Haitian national illegally present in the United States, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40, Hujrah Wahhaj, 37, Subhanah Wahhaj, 35, and Lucas Morton, 40, are charged in a criminal complaint that was filed earlier today in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico," the bureau said in a statement.

"The criminal complaint charges Jany Leveille with being an alien unlawfully in possession of firearms and ammunition in the District of New Mexico from Nov. 2017 through Aug. 2018," the bureau said. "The criminal complaint charges the other four defendants with aiding and abetting Leveille in committing the offense, and with conspiring with Leveille to commit the offense."

On Wednesday, three of the suspects were released from custody, just hours after a judge dismissed all of the charges against them.

District Judge Emilio Chavez on Wednesday dismissed charges against Lucas Morton, Subhannah Wahhaj and Hujrah Wahhaj, ruling that authorities violated the state’s “10-day rule.”
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🇺🇸 **U.S. halts funding to U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees**
🇵🇸 *Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/SPDu5>

The United States on Friday halted all funding to a U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees in a decision further heightening tensions between the Palestinian leadership and the Trump administration.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the decision as “a flagrant assault against the Palestinian people and a defiance of U.N. resolutions.”

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the business model and fiscal practices of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) made it an “irredeemably flawed operation.”

“The administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA,” she said in a statement.

Nauert said the agency’s “endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries is simply unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years.”
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🇺🇸 **California lawmakers send strict 'net neutrality' laws to governor**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/5y0it>

California lawmakers sent to the governor’s desk for final approval strict “net neutrality” laws on internet providers that would defy sweeping Federal Communications Commission rules seen as a boon for the companies.

The Democrat-controlled California Senate voted 27-12 to pass the bill, known as SB 822, with just hours left in the legislative session. The measure was approved by their colleagues in the state Assembly one day earlier.

Governor Jerry Brown, also a Democrat, has not yet said if he would sign the bill into law. He has 30 days to act but does not typically signal his intentions before legislation lands on his desk.

Members of the California Assembly voted 58-17 to send the bill to their colleagues in the state Senate, who have until midnight to pass so-called SB 822 on the final day of the legislative session or wait until next year.

If the measure passes both chambers of the Democrat-controlled state legislature it would still require approval from Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, who has not said if he would sign it into law.
----------------

🐍 **20th Anniversary of Metal Gear Solid**
https://twitter.com/LordBalvin/status/1036380646879440896

🇯🇵 **Typhoon Jebi: Japan hit by strongest storm of 25 years**
*The Guardian* - <http://archive.li/jT2Ki>

Japan bracinghas braced itself for flooding and landslides after what could be the strongest typhoon to hit the country in a quarter of a century made landfall.
Local media reported that seven people died and more than 100 others were injured when Typhoon Jebi caused violent winds in the west of the country.

According to public broadcaster NHK, the casualties included a 71-year-old man who was killed in western Shiga prefecture after being trapped under a warehouse that collapsed in strong wind. NHK said 164 people had suffered mostly minor injuries.

Several people were injured at Kyoto station when part of a glass ceiling collapsed, according to police. A number of vehicles were blown on to their sides on a motorway, while a truck narrowly escaped being swept off a bridge connecting the island of Shikoku and the main Japanese island of Honshu.

Television networks showed dramatic footage of a 2,591-tonne tanker that collided with the side of a bridge linking the mainland with Kansai International airport, which stands on an artificial island in Osaka Bay.

The tanker and bridge were damaged but the ship’s crew were unhurt. The airport’s runway and the basement floor of a terminal building were flooded, according to local authorities.
----------------

🇪🇬 **'Man detained' after blast near US embassy in Cairo**
*BBC* - <https://archive.fo/UHVcV>

Egyptian security forces have reportedly detained a man suspected of trying to detonate a bomb near the US embassy in the capital, Cairo.

A security source said the man was carrying a bag that exploded outside the compound in the Garden City area.

The embassy said police had "finished their investigations at the scene" and that it had resumed normal business.

Egyptian academic Adel al-Adawy earlier tweeted photos appearing to show a small fire and a man being led away.

Another witness told Reuters news agency she had heard a blast and then seen a man with a backpack that had caught fire across the road from the embassy.
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🇺🇸 **'Daily Caller Ex-Editor Secretly Wrote for Richard Spencer’s Alt-Right Journal: Report**
*Daily Beast/Atlantic* - <https://archive.fo/yj9GP>

Former Daily Caller Editor Scott Greer published anti-black, anti-Semitic rhetoric at the alt-right Radix Journal under the pseudonym Michael McGregor while simultaneously working at the Caller between 2014 and 2015, according to a report by The Atlantic. Radix Journal was founded by Richard Spencer, the alt-right leader who has advocated for turning America into a white ethno-state. Under his pseudonym, Greer espoused racist and sexist views, including “The current campaign against tough policing, if successful, would effectively turn any city with a large percentage of Blacks into a third-world hellhole,” The Atlantic reports.

Greer left the Daily Caller in June to write a book, retaining a “contributor” status. But after The Atlantic confronted Greer about leaked chat logs that proved he had written under the pseudonym, he cut all ties with the Caller. “In my early twenties when it appeared our only mainstream options were Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, I was attracted to more radical ideas and expressed them under the name Michael McGregor at Radix Journal,” Greer said in a statement. “As the political situation has evolved in recent years, so have my views. That said, I do not apologize for honestly stating what I believed to be correct at the time, unless everyone must apologize every time they change their opinion.”
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🇺🇸 **Trump rips searing Times op-ed from unnamed senior official**
*AP* - <https://archive.fo/peDAJ>

In a striking anonymous broadside, a senior Trump administration official wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times on Wednesday claiming to be part of a group of people “working diligently from within” to impede President Donald Trump’s “worst inclinations” and ill-conceived parts of his agenda.

Trump said it was a “gutless editorial” and “really a disgrace,” and his press secretary called on the official to resign.

Trump later tweeted, “TREASON?” and in an extraordinary move demanded that if “the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”

The writer, claiming to be part of the “resistance” to Trump but not from the left, said, “Many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.” The newspaper described the author of the column only as a senior official in the Trump administration.

“It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room,” the author continued. “We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.”
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🇺🇸 **I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration** (OPINION EDITORIAL)
*New York Times* - <https://archive.fo/4u8A8>

We work for the president but we have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know. I am one of them.

(Read full article for more context and why they let them anonymously contribute this, it is completely related to last story I posted - Spicy)
----------------

🇺🇸 **In quick reversal, Trump threatens shutdown over border wall**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/iUM2w>

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would be willing to shut down the U.S. government if Congress does not provide enough funding for border security, reversing a stance he took a day earlier.

Trump made his comments at a meeting with congressional Republican leaders at the White House about the legislative agenda for the next few months, including extending government funding past a Sept. 30 deadline.

He said Congress was making “tremendous progress” on funding, but that he wanted to make good on a promise to fund border security. Trump has repeatedly threatened not to sign funding legislation if Congress fails to include enough money for a wall on the border with Mexico.

Trump reiterated that threat on Wednesday. Responding to a reporter’s question about a possible shutdown, he said: “If it happens, it happens. If it’s about border security, I’m willing to do anything. We have to protect our borders.”

His stance contradicts an interview he gave to the Daily Caller on Tuesday, when he said: “I don’t like the idea of shutdowns.”

“I don’t see even myself or anybody else closing down the country right now,” Trump was quoted as saying.
----------------

https://youtu.be/qS_6bqNTgao
Cat Lady forums exist<:suicide:280809026944761856> <:kys:295297598120787969> <:jones:346333940644052992> <:comfy:286526459596636160> <:groypernt:355744055113678848>

🇺🇸 **Twitter permanently bans Alex Jones, Infowars, citing abuse**
*AP* - <https://archive.fo/3lZau>

Twitter permanently banned right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars show for abusive behavior, a day after CEO Jack Dorsey testified before Congress about alleged bias against conservatives on the platform.

The company said Jones won’t be able to create new accounts on Twitter or take over any existing ones. In a tweet, it said it would continue to monitor reports about other accounts potentially associated with Jones or Infowars, and will “take action” if it finds any attempts to circumvent the ban.

Twitter said Jones posted a video on Wednesday that violates the company’s policy against “abusive behavior.” That video showed Jones berating CNN journalist Oliver Darcy for some 10 minutes in between two congressional hearings on social media. Dorsey testified at both hearings, but did not appear to witness the confrontation.

Jones had about 900,000 followers on Twitter. Infowars had about 430,000. Jones did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone praised Twitter’s action in a tweet. “Glad Twitter is taking steps to put an end to the abusive behavior from Alex Jones & Infowars,” the tweet stated. “Tweets designed to threaten, belittle, demean and silence individuals have no place on this platform.”
----------------

🇸🇪 **Far-right seen surging as Swedish election outcome uncertain**
*France 24* - <https://archive.fo/dmYLC>

Swedes vote in legislative elections on Sunday expected to see the far-right surge amid a deep rift over the integration of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, with the election outcome seen as uncertain.

Neither Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's left-wing bloc nor the centre-right opposition were seen obtaining a majority.

The far-right Sweden Democrats (SD), an anti-immigration party with roots in the neo-Nazi movement, are tipped to win around 20 percent of votes, according to an average of seven polling institutes published in the past 10 days, up from 13 percent in 2014 elections.

That could make SD Sweden's second biggest party behind Lofven's Social Democrats.

SD has capitalised on voters who feel left behind by traditional parties in favour of the 400,000 asylum seekers who have arrived since 2012, whom they believe are straining the country's famed welfare model.
----------------

Good

Sweden needed a wakeup call

🇺🇸 **The Thrill Is Gone: Only 750 Turn Out to See Former President Obama in Far-Left California**
*Gate Way Pundit* - <https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/09/the-thrill-is-gone-former-president-obama-only-gets-750-at-campaign-event-in-far-left-california/>

This weekend, in an unprecedented move, former President Barack Obama went on the campaign trail to push the far-left Democrat agenda in the upcoming November elections.

But, it didn’t quite turn out like he expected, only 750 people showed up at his event in far left California!

🇷🇺 **Google pulls Russian opposition leader's YouTube advert ahead of vote**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/QOs3Q>

Google removed a YouTube advert by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny after authorities complained that the videos would violate an election silence law before Sunday’s vote for regional governors, an aide to Navalny said on Saturday.

The series of YouTube videos featured Navalny inviting Russians to join demonstrations on Sunday, when polls suggest President Vladimir Putin’s former chief-of-staff Sergei Sobyanin will be comfortably re-elected as the capital’s mayor.

Navalny’s aide, Leonid Volkov, said in a social media post that Google deleted the videos after the Central Election Commission had sent a letter of complaint to Google about the advertisement — a demand Volkov called illegal.

Google’s Russian office said in an emailed comment: “We consider all justified appeals from state bodies. We also require advertisers to act in accordance with the local law and our advertising policies.”

Navalny, who ran against Sobyanin in 2013 and had planned to lead a protest against proposed pension changes on Sunday, will spend election day behind bars after being convicted of violating protest laws. His supporters plan to demonstrate across Russia.

While Sobyanin appears on track for an easy win, public anger over the planned increases to the nationwide pension age means many voters may stay away, which would tarnish his victory, some political analysts have said.
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🇷🇺 **Russian police arrest hundreds protesting against Putin pension plan**
*The Guardian* - <https://archive.fo/0u9er>

Police detained almost 300 people across Russia during protests against government plans to raise the national retirement age that have resulted in President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings slumping to a four-year low.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets on Sunday in dozens of towns and cities after Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin critic, called for nationwide rallies against the pension reforms. Navalny was jailed for 30 days on 25 August on a separate protest-related charge in a move that he said was aimed at preventing him from leading the rallies on Sunday.

In Moscow, where protesters gathered on the city’s iconic Pushkin Square, about 2,500 people ignored police warnings to disperse. They chanted “Putin is a thief!” and “No increase in the pension age!” Although the demonstration was largely peaceful, violence erupted when some protesters tried to march towards parliament, where they were beaten back by police with truncheons.

The protests came as Moscow held mayoral elections that the Kremlin-backed incumbent, Sergei Sobyanin, was expected to win easily. Critics accused officials of barring genuine opposition candidates. Russians also went to the polls in regional elections.

Authorities did not give permission for the vast majority of the protests and some Russians told the Guardian they had stayed away because they feared arrest. Dozens of members of Navalny’s opposition movement were detained before the events on charges of organising illegal rallies.

Earlier, Navalny’s aides condemned Google after it removed his adverts from YouTube urging Russians to protest against the pension changes.
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🇸🇪 **Swedish election: Nationalists 'make gains' in early exit polls**
*BBC* - <https://archive.fo/LYPWa>

The Sweden Democrats (SD) are expected to achieve 19.2% of the vote.

The party, described by Prime Minister Stefan Lofven as "racist", held 12.9% of the ballot in the previous election.

Neither the governing Social Democrats nor the centre-right bloc of parties are predicted to win a majority.

An exit poll by public broadcaster SVT suggested the centre-right Alliance won 39.6% of the vote, slightly more than the Social Democrats on 39.4%.

Immigration has been a central issue of the campaign.

SD leader Jimmie Akesson has argued that the high number of migrants taken in by Sweden is driving up crime and putting the welfare system at risk.

Mr Lofven has accused the SD of extremism and said that a vote for it was "dangerous".
----------------

🇩🇪 **Kothen: Far-right crowds march through German city demanding 'National Socialism now'**
*Independent* - <https://archive.fo/Ns4qx>

Far-right protesters chanted “national socialism now” as they marched through the streets of a small German city.

The shout could be heard in footage of a procession through Köthen on Sunday after a 22-year-old German man died following an altercation with two Afghan nationals the previous evening.

Hundreds of protesters from right-wing groups had descended on the east German city, holding a vigil for the victim before parading through neighbourhoods.

The gathering had been organised on short notice through social media and was attended by several high-profile figures on the German far-right.

David Köckert, a leader of anti-Islam group Thügida, spoke at the rally, calling for resistance and describing events surrounding the victim’s death as a “race war against the German people”.
----------------

Is germany awakening?

🇪🇺 **The EU has passed Article 13, but Europe's meme war is far from over**
*Wired* - <https://archive.fo/YiYzg>

The European Parliament has voted to pass the new EU Copyright Directive. Over the last few months, today's vote had been portrayed as a decisive battle over the future of the internet as we know it.

Article 11 would require internet companies to pay news outlets for hosting their content on their platforms. While this has been welcomed by some news corporations, others suggested that this would force social media companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter to pay news organisation in order to feature as little as two words — or a hyperlink — from their news stories. Article 11 states that publishing "insubstantial parts of a press publication" should not be subjected to the norm, but fails to give a clear definition of what "insubstantial" boils down to. Does it mean a hyperlink snippet? A sentence? A word?

Article 13 is — if possible — even more controversial, earning itself the reputation of a "meme killer." It would require web giants to automatically filter copyrighted material — songs, images, videos — uploaded on their platforms, unless it has been specifically licensed. Despite its divisiveness, the piece of legislation passed by 438 votes to 226 with 39 abstentions in the European Parliament.

Concerns included the filters' blocking of non-copyrighted material by accident, pretextual copyright claims by "copyright trolls", and the crowding out of smaller websites which cannot afford expensive filter software to keep their platforms compliant. Even if a meme-saving proviso was put forward, protecting the right to share material for parody purposes, some objected that the kind of AI-powered algorithms most likely to carry out the filtering operation would not be able to recognise memes. (Although Facebook seems interested in training its AI to do just that.)
----------------

🇺🇸 Google Leaked Video After Trump Election Executives Have Meltdown
*Breitbart* - <https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/>

Huge eye opener, 1hr video of Google execs spilling their guys at how far left they lean.

A video recorded by Google shortly after the 2016 presidential election reveals an atmosphere of panic and dismay amongst the tech giant’s leadership, coupled with a determination to thwart both the Trump agenda and the broader populist movement emerging around the globe.

Sent to Breitbart News by an anonymous source, it features co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, VPs Kent Walker and Eileen Naughton, CFO Ruth Porat, and CEO Sundar Pichai.