Corpus Christi

Trump tells NYC to activate National Guard: 'The lowlifes and losers are ripping you apart!'

After vowing Monday to deploy military force to restore order in states that fail to “dominate” unlawful demonstrations, President Trump on Tuesday all but ordered New York City to request help from the National Guard.

Cop in Floyd case got medals for valor and drew complaints

The Minneapolis police officer who used his knee to pin down George Floyd’s neck before his death was the most experienced of the four officers involved in the arrest, with a record that included medals for bravery and 17 complaints against him, including one for pulling a woman out of her car during a speeding stop. New details about Derek Chauvin and the other now-fired officers emerged Wednesday after prosecutors upgraded Chauvin’s charge to second-degree murder and charged the others with aiding and abetting in a case that has convulsed the nation with protests over race and police brutality. Heavily redacted personnel files show that Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the force, was initially trained as a cook and served in the Army as a military police officer.

Hong Kong: Thousands defy ban to attend Tiananmen vigil

It comes as lawmakers approve a controversial bill criminalising insulting China's national anthem.

'My face exploded': Police firing rubber bullets have wounded and permanently disabled protesters and journalists

Experts tell Insider that rubber bullets are considered "less lethal" weapons — a "legitimate tool" employed by policemen for decades.

Powerful video from 1986 resurfaces showing Biden’s passionate speech against apartheid

A powerful video of then-Senator Joe Biden speaking about apartheid South Africa has resurfaced.The clip, taken from C-Span coverage of a Senate committee in 1986, shows Mr Biden passionately speaking out in support of the majority black population of South Africa, and against the oppressive apartheid regime.

In aftermath of George Floyd's death, San Diego police will 'immediately' end use of carotid restraint

The San Diego Police Department, spurred by the outrage after George Floyd's death, has immediately banned a controversial neck restraint.

NYPD Says Looters Are Stashing Bricks. Brooklyn Locals Say Otherwise

On Wednesday morning, New York Police Department Commissioner Dermot F. Shea tweeted a low-resolution video of an unidentified officer picking up blue plastic crates on a city street corner. The crates, which appeared to be filled with chunks of masonry, had apparently been left next to a garbage can near Avenue X and West 3rd Street in Gravesend, a neighborhood by the water on Brooklyn’s south end that’s been largely untouched by the protests elsewhere in the borough and the city."This is what our cops are up against: Organized looters, strategically placing caches of bricks & rocks at locations throughout NYC," Shea wrote. On Wednesday afternoon, the White House included that clip in a video compilation of footage it claimed showed “Antifa and professional anarchists... invading our communities.”But Shea didn’t explain why organized looters would have left bricks in a quiet, mostly residential Brooklyn neighborhood, and conversations with people who work and live in the area suggest the NYPD’s Twitter bulletin threatened to stoke tensions for no reason.Cops Reclaim New York in Massive Show of ForceAn officer in Sector B of the 61st Precinct, which covers Gravesend, said he could not explain or discuss the details of the brick discoveries. NYPD coordinators for the neighborhood did not respond to requests for comment. A detective at the Office of the NYPD Deputy Commissioner, Public Information said he did not know anything about the incident. “The city is going through an unprecedented issue with looting and protesting,” he told The Daily Beast. “The normal people who would answer your questions are out trying to protect the city. So that’s why you’re not getting answers to your questions.”In the week of protests since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, cops and politicians alike have been quick to point to “organized looters” and “outside agitators” fomenting unrest. But the claims often come with little evidence, and seem to buckle under scrutiny. Last week, after NYPD vehicles were filmed driving into a crowd of protestors, Mayor Bill De Blasio claimed that “a small set of men… came to do violence in a systematic organized fashion.” And there have been reports of protesters throwing bricks at police in New York. But New York City Council Member Mark Treyger, who represents the Gravesend area, disagreed with the idea that external troublemakers were making mischief in his turf. In a phone call with The Daily Beast, Treyger said he became aware of the discovery of containers of suspect materials at two locations in his district when a constituent messaged him over social media, and that he confirmed the finding with the 61st Precinct. However, Treyger said that the NYPD acknowledged to him the containers might simply contain construction debris. The councilman said that he had not seen protests in the area or any signs of organized looting—and pointed out that at least one set of the containers were found near a construction site, suggesting that the bricks came from there. He called his conclusion “simple math.” "There is literally a construction site and construction fencing and signage. And they found five or six containers of what appears to me to be construction debris,” Treyger told The Daily Beast. “I believe that [Shea’s] tweet about my district is not responsible. Because he did not give the full set of facts and the full picture, especially when his own department says the discovery was still under investigation,” Treyger added, warning that such rumors could cause division in the racially diverse neighborhood. “The police commissioner needs to be very mindful with his words, because they could incite violence.”The commissioner’s claims about the crates in Gravesend were especially remarkable because they were nowhere near the locus of protests Tuesday, which is when five employees of local businesses told The Daily Beast the bins were removed.Employees at two businesses—Knapp Pizza II and New Fortune Wine & Spirit—on the block in question told The Daily Beast police had removed the crates on Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, Tuesday’s protests in Brooklyn were centered closer to the Barclays Center, nearly five miles away. A woman who asked to be identified only as Sabrina R. said that the medical offices next to the apparent site of the bins did have security cameras, but that they were blocked from a view of the corner. An employee at nearby New Fortune Wine & Spirit said they had heard about the bricks, but had seen no protest. She said that while the store was outfitted with security cameras, that they belonged to the landlord, who could not be reached by press time.Violent Social-Distancing Arrest Videos Go Viral, Putting NYPD on DefensiveAt Smart Choice Pharmacy, which sits across from the site where the crates appeared to be collected, a staff member told The Daily Beast the street has been very quiet. “We haven’t seen anything like that,” she said. “It was very quiet yesterday. We didn’t see anything like that… There was no protest in Gravesend last night.” An employee at the Dunkin Donuts across the intersection from the site in question told The Daily Beast they had not noticed the bricks at all. An NYPD spokeswoman told the Daily Beast no complaint report had been filed about the containers. “No one called it in to complain,” she said. “It wasn’t taken as a complaint report… Because it’s not a crime. [The crates were] just left there.”In a media availability Wednesday morning, Commissioner Shea discussed the issue with Mayor De Blasio. “So in terms of the tweet today, unfortunately it’s not an isolated incident,” Shea said. “That was two locations, one was in Brooklyn, one was in Queens, where pre-staged bricks are being placed and then transported to quote unquote peaceful protests—which are peaceful protests—but then used by that criminal group within to sow fear.” Shea did not provide any details on the incident in Queens or specify how NYPD had come to the conclusion that the debris containers were associated with protests, given that no major protests had been reported in that area. He did concede that they might have come from construction sites. “We’ve had construction sites burglarized in recent days in Manhattan,” Shea said. “It’s interesting. Construction site burglary is not that uncommon, but during a riot it’s interesting what was taken—bricks.” Shea also mentioned a pattern of protestors throwing water bottles filled with cement at police officers, but did not provide specific instances of when such incidents had occurred, or evidence that any of those had been  “an orchestrated attack.” “I do believe that the police commissioner needs to be clear in his messaging that this debris was found near a construction site,” Council Member Treyger said. “And as of this afternoon, I have not heard of organized looting in my district.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Putin declines British invitation to take part in coronavirus summit: Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin does not plan to take part in an online summit on a possible coronavirus vaccine being organised by the British government this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. Putin received an invitation to take part in the summit from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week, the Kremlin had said. Scheduled to take place on June 4, the Global Vaccine Summit 2020 is designed to mobilise resources needed to ensure universal availability of the vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

Why The Middle East Fears Russia's Alpha Group Commandos

A 2018 report recommended just that.

Police killing of 'BBQ Man' renews anguish in Louisville

David McAtee was known to give out free meals to community members, including officers of the police department that shot him.

Voices captured on an NYC police scanner can be heard saying protesters should be shot and run over

The scanner broadcast people saying, "Shoot those motherf---ers," and "Run them over," referring to protesters.

Resurfaced Trump interview about Tiananmen Square massacre shows what he thinks of protests

Donald Trump gave a glimpse into his mindset towards mass protests when he said in 1990 that China showed "power of strength" in a "vicious" crackdown on students in Tiananmen Square.Two decades later, armed riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets cleared protesters away from Lafayette Square before Mr Trump on Monday walked from the White House to St John's Church for a photo-op with a Bible.

'You will move, or you will die': A frightened truck driver's widely shared Facebook post says truckers will 'defend themselves' by running over protesters

"Air horns will sound, steering wheels will be held tightly, but those brakes will not be touched," the truck driver wrote.

Gov. Cuomo apologizes to NYPD brass after critical 'do your job' comments, chief says

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo apologized privately to top New York City Police administrators after ripping their response to rioters as a "disgrace."

2 dead after shooting at North Dakota air base

A shooting on Monday left two airmen dead at the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, the military said. The base’s emergency services members responded to the shooting, which occurred at 4:30 a.m. Officials said there is no risk to other personnel, and the shooting remains under investigation.

‘Tiger King’: Carole Baskin’s Husband Don Lewis’ Will Was Forged, Sheriff Says

Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff Chad Chronister is convinced that Carole Baskin’s former husband Don Lewis’s will—which granted Baskin all of Lewis’ assets in the event of his disappearance—is a fake. Moreover, he said, two experts have confirmed it.“They had two experts deem it 100 percent a forgery,” Chronister told Tampa news outlet WTSP, as reported by TMZ. The problem, he said, is the statute of limitations has already expired. “But you know, it certainly cast another shadow of suspicion.”In May, two handwriting experts told a reporter from the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting that the signature and power of attorney on Lewis’ will appeared to have been traced from his marriage record—as did the witness and notary signatures.At this point, due to the lapsed statute of limitations, Chronister said, “There’s no recourse.” But, he added, “The investigators have some great leads; they’re working through them. I hope something pans out.”Chronister’s office also apparently spoke with Don Lewis’ children, whom he said “had additional information the investigators weren't aware of.” Investigators also spoke with the office manager, who “started to tell them things that they weren’t aware of, that they didn’t have in their files,” Chronister said. “So I think they’re going through a lot of information right now, and fingers crossed... I hope we can finally solve this case.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

'Near impunity' for drug war killings in Philippines, U.N. says

Tens of thousands of people in the Philippines may have been killed in the war on drugs since mid-2016 amid "near impunity" for police and incitement to violence by top officials, the United Nations said on Thursday. It said the drugs crackdown, launched by President Rodrigo Duterte after he won election on a platform of crushing crime, has been marked by police orders and high-level rhetoric that may have been interpreted as "permission to kill". In Manila, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the "rehashed claims" of impunity were unfounded.

U.K. PM tells China that Britain will admit 3 Million from Hong Kong

"Many people in Hong Kong fear that their way of life — which China pledged to uphold — is under threat," Johnson said.

EU, China postpone September summit due to pandemic

The European Union and China have agreed to postpone a summit planned for this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic, German officials said Wednesday. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping and later with European Council President Charles Michel to discuss the Sept. 14 meeting, due to be held in the German city of Leipzig and seen as a key moment in EU relations with China. The European Union has tried to position itself as a mediator between China and the United States.

New York police take seconds to restore reputation for brutality

Driving vehicles into protesters demanding justice for George Floyd earned the backing of the mayor, but of few others * George Floyd killing – latest US updates * See all our George Floyd coverageIt doesn’t take long to blow up a reputation. In the case of the New York police department, an institution with an already troubled history, the clip lasted all of 27 seconds.It showed an NYPD vehicle in Brooklyn lined up against a metal barricade behind which protesters were chanting during Saturday’s demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd. Projectiles were thrown on to the roof of the car, then suddenly a second police SUV drew up alongside and instead of stopping continued to plough straight into the crowd.Seconds later the first vehicle lurched forward, knocking the barrier over and with it propelling several protesters to the ground amid a harrowing chorus of shrieking.A 27-second video, now viewed more than 30m times, had quickly shredded years of effort to repair the deeply tarnished image of the NYPD. New York’s “finest” were firmly cast in a role normally reserved for the security corps of petty dictators.The shocking video was compounded hours later when the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, spoke about the incident. A politician who won election in 2013 largely on a promise to reform the NYPD and scrap its racially discriminatory stop-and-frisk policy, astounded even his closest supporters when he defended the police.De Blasio said: “I do believe the NYPD has acted appropriately.”Social media lit up. Was it appropriate to drive those two SUVs into the crowd? Was it appropriate for an NYPD officer forcibly to remove the coronavirus mask of a black protester whose arms were raised in the air, then pepper-spray his face?Was it appropriate for another officer to tell a protester to get off the street, then physically shove her several feet towards the curb where she landed on her head? Or that the police officers involved in the pepper spray incident had covered their badge numbers, presumably to avoid having to answer for their actions. Or to beat a nurse walking home from a shift at a hospital?The clashes between New York’s police and its protesters have reverberated around the city. The largest police force in the US, with its $5.6bn annual budget and 36,000 uniformed officers under the leadership of one of the most progressive mayors in the country, has responded to demonstrations about police brutality with more police brutality.The Black, Latino and Asian Caucus of the city council, which makes up more than half of the legislative body, was swift and devastating in its criticism. In a statement, it said that the NYPD had acted “with aggression towards New Yorkers who vigorously and vociferously but nonetheless peacefully advocated for justice”.Adrienne Adams, co-chair of the caucus, told the Guardian the NYPD had tried to suppress legitimate anger felt by African American and other minority communities following years of police abuse. “We cannot allow people who have kept people of color down for decades to say now that we don’t have the right to display our outrage,” she said.Though that sentiment applies nationwide, Adams believes New York stands out as having a “horrible history of police brutality”. It was the NYPD that set the tone, she said, when Daniel Pantaleo, the officer implicated in the 2014 death by chokehold of Eric Garner in Staten Island, avoided prosecution.“When nothing happened to the police officers who were responsible for the death of Eric Garner, New York set the blueprint for what happened to George Floyd,” she said. “There’s no penalty, no consequence, so it’s OK.”Adams’s framing of the Garner killing could equally be applied to a long string of notorious episodes of police misconduct that preceded it. In 1997, Haitian immigrant Abner Louima was handcuffed by an NYPD officer and sexually assaulted with a broken broomstick.Two years later, Amadou Diallo was shot near his home in a hail of 41 bullets after officers mistook his wallet for a gun. In an echo of that event, an unarmed Sean Bell was shot 50 times in Queens on the morning of his wedding in 2006 – it took six years for the NYPD detective who opened the fusillade to be chucked off the force while nobody has ever been convicted of any crime.In the policing of protest, the NYPD also has a contentious track record. In 2004 it rounded up more than 1,800 peaceful protesters rallying outside the Republican National Convention during the re-election bid of George W Bush and herded them into overcrowded pens on Pier 57 in Manhattan. In 2011 it was similarly criticized for heavy-handed tactics during the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.Cutting across all this, the force has consistently targeted its efforts on neighborhoods of the city with majority black or Latino populations, straying at times into overt racial profiling. Though stop and frisk has been reined back in recent years, the NYPD continues to heavily and disproportionately police those communities despite a historically low homicide rate.Despite this long legacy of overreach, the force continues to be systemically resistant to public oversight. Under Section 50-A of New York state law, the disciplinary files of police officers are largely held in secret, making the task of holding them accountable almost impossible.Jennvine Wong, a staff attorney at the Cop Accountability Project (CAP) within the Legal Aid Society, told the Guardian that there were currently more than 200 police officers still being employed by the NYPD on full pay who should have been considered for termination following reports of misconduct.Data collected by CAP shows that where cases of misconduct arise they often involve escalation of low-level encounters into aggressive confrontations – something officers are supposed to be trained not to do. The project is currently litigating the case of Tomas Medina who was put in a chokehold and Tasered in 2018 after police were called to a complaint about loud music being played.Eric Garner’s fatal arrest was triggered by him allegedly selling single cigarettes.Although the use of chokeholds has been banned in New York, the project has found that between 2015 and 2018 the city settled 30 lawsuits involving NYPD use of the potentially lethal maneuver.Wong believes such endemic deployment of excessive force has spilled over into the NYPD’s handling of the George Floyd protests. She was present at a peaceful protest in Brooklyn that suddenly turned volatile not because of the behavior of protesters but by a sudden change of tack on the part of the police.“In a split second, the NYPD snapped and engaged in over-aggressive enforcement. They escalated it from 0 to 10 out of nowhere, arresting people and wielding their batons.”If there has been unrestrained use of batons in the city, it would be with the full approval of Ed Mullins, the provocative president of one of the main police unions, the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA). He wrote to members urging “each and every one of you to report for duty with your helmet and baton and do not hesitate to utilize that equipment in securing your personal safety”.The sister Police Benevolent Association of New York City has also spoken to its members in inflammatory terms about them being “under attack by violent, organized terrorists while New York City council and other politicians sit at home demanding we ‘de-escalate’”.There is no denying that the NYPD faces difficult challenges in the policing of mass protests, especially late at night when violent outbreaks have erupted as they did on Monday in Manhattan and the Bronx. Fires were started in the street and stores looted.For Eugene O’Donnell, a former NYPD officer and prosecutor in Brooklyn and Queens who is now a professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Monday night’s spectacle of looting along Fifth Avenue amounted to a collapse of policing in the city.“This weekend, the job of police officer in New York became officially impossible when the police abolitionists won. They have created a model of zero tolerance towards force being used and any injuries being inflicted, and that’s absurd.”O’Donnell said the same pattern is repeating itself across America. “In city after city, the police were abolished this weekend. They stood back and watched as damage was inflicted that was irreversible.”

TV reporter tries to stop LA police arresting black store owners and good Samaritans instead of looters

Police arrested black business owners and good Samaritans who were defending a neighbouring store from alleged looters, despite a reporter’s pleas.The arrest was broadcast live on Fox 11 as reporter Christina Gonzalez described the situation unfolding on the street outside a Van Nuys, Los Angeles, liquor store on Monday.

One of America's most popular police trainers is teaching officers how to kill with fear-based warrior tactics

Dave Grossman's overly aggressive style prepares law enforcement officers for a job under siege, where they're "at war" on the streets.

McEnany responds to Esper’s opposition to using military for protests

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany responded to questions Wednesday on whether President Trump still has confidence in Defense Secretary Mark Esper after he opposed Trump on using the military to quell protests across the country.

Tropical Storm Cristobal has formed in Gulf of Mexico and may approach US by weekend

Tropical Storm Cristobal is the third named storm of the 2020 hurricane season, which began Monday. It's forming in the Gulf of Mexico.

Fox News host alludes to baseless conspiracy theory and calls George Floyd death 'a premeditated hit' that 'was executed extremely poorly'

Fox News host Jesse Watters outlined a baseless QAnon-backed theory that George Floyd was part of "a hit that was executed extremely poorly."

Britain says nearly 30,000 COVID-19 tests sent to U.S. lab came back void

Nearly 30,000 COVID-19 tests which Britain sent to a U.S. lab for processing came back void, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman said on Thursday, adding to a mounting pile of questions over the UK's testing regime. Johnson's spokesman said that "operational issues in our lab network" had meant that 67,000 tests were sent to the United States for processing.

They wanted to protest peacefully. Police responded with force. On the ground in Minneapolis.

“We cannot back down now. We have come way too far. We are literally in the midst of history.”

UN appeal for urgent Yemen aid falls $1B short amid virus

A United Nations appeal Tuesday for countries to fund emergency aid in Yemen, where more than five years of war have collapsed the country's health care system, raised $1.35 billion — a billion dollars short of what aid agencies needed. It is meant to cover Yemen's needs through the next six months. Aid agencies say Yemen is in dire need of assistance as the coronavirus threatens to decimate a health care system already ravaged by civil war.

Police Identify German Man as Main Suspect in Madeleine McCann Disappearance

Police in the U.K. have asked the public for help in tracking the movements of a 43-year-old German man identified as the main suspect in the mysterious disappearance of Madeleine McCann.Madeleine vanished from a hotel apartment in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast in May 2007, while on holiday with her parents and twin siblings.It is the first time British police have identified a key suspect, and senior police officers described the breakthrough to the U.K.’s Telegraph as “significant.” Friends of Kate and Gerry McCann told the newspaper it was the biggest development to date in a case often described as the most scrutinized missing persons case in modern history.Scotland Yard said in a statement that detectives had identified the 43-year-old German man, currently in prison in Germany on unrelated charges, as a suspect following a 2017 appeal on the 10th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance. New Break in Maddie McCann Case Centers on Killer PedophileOn Wednesday, they appealed for help from the public in tracking the German man’s movements around the Algarve during the time Madeleine went missing.The man, whose name was not released due to German privacy laws, lived on and off in the Algarve between 1995 and 2008. At the time of Madeleine’s disappearance, he was 30 years old and was living in a camper van in the area.“He received a 30-minute phone call in Praia da Luz, the resort where the McCanns were on holiday, just an hour before the 3-year-old girl vanished,” the statement said.Police are trying to track down the man on the other end of the phone call and took the unusual step on Wednesday of releasing the Portuguese mobile phone number the suspect was using as well as the number of the person who called him.Police also released images of the distinctive VW camper the suspect was living in, and a 1993 Jaguar saloon car that the suspect owned and re-registered in Germany under another person’s name the day after Madeleine went missing. The Jaguar stayed in Portugal despite the man re-registering it in Germany. Scotland Yard said he was driving the camper around Praia da Luz in the days before Madeleine’s disappearance and had been living it in for days or weeks.Madeleine’s disappearance almost 13 years ago garnered an extraordinary amount of interest globally and led to a high-profile—but largely fruitless—search for answers.There has never been any trace of Madeleine since she vanished and no arrests have been made. British tabloids subjected the McCanns to vicious and baseless allegations of being involved in their daughter’s disappearance—however investigators have maintained that it was a criminal act by a stranger.In a statement, Kate and Gerry McCann said they welcomed the appeal and thanked police. “All we have ever wanted is to find her, uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice. We will never give up hope of finding Madeleine alive but whatever the outcome may be, we need to know, as we need to find peace.”Detective Chief Inspector Mark Cranwell, who leads the task force set up by U.K. police to investigate the disappearance, said: “While this male is a suspect we retain an open mind as to his involvement and this remains a missing person inquiry.“A similar public appeal for information was due to be made on German television on Wednesday. The suspect was described by police as white and in 2007 was believed to have been six feet tall, aged between 25 to early 30s, with short blond fair, a slim build, and fair skin. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Hong Kong criminalises insulting Chinese national anthem

Hong Kong lawmakers approved a bill on Thursday that would criminalise insults to China’s national anthem, as protesters defied a ban on a vigil for the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Offenders will face three years in jail and fines as high as HK$50,000 (£5,160). The proposal passed with 41 in favour and one opposed after pro-democracy lawmakers staged protests, dropping stink bombs in the chamber and shouting as votes were cast. The ruling came as Hong Kong ramped up police presence after a vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre was banned for the first time. Authorities cited social distancing measures, even though schools and bars have reopened. Metal barricades went up in Victoria Park to bar people from gathering to remember lives lost when the military gunned down peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, seen as a threat to the ruling Communist Party. After three decades, the Chinese government still has not acknowledged the event where hundreds, possibly thousands, died. Instead, Beijing has worked hard to erase it from history, a campaign that accelerates each year around the anniversary.

Tear gas is banned from war — but police still shoot it at protesters, who cough and bleed as a result. At least one has lost an eye.

Tear gas canisters can cause permanent injuries, and all the coughing and sneezing that tear gas prompts is bad news for coronavirus spread too.

Trump tried to vote with wrong address while railing against voter fraud

Records reviewed by the Post found the president had to resubmit his application, despite railing against the vote by mail processDonald Trump has been railing against vote by mail for the past few months – falsely citing the potential for voter fraud, which is extremely rare. As it turns out, the president himself bungled the system.Trump registered to vote in Florida last September under his White House address – 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, according to the Washington Post. But Florida does not allow people to register to vote without an in-state address, and one month later, Trump resubmitted his application with a Florida address and voted in the Republican primary.On his registration form, Trump told Florida officials his legal residence was in Washington DC but on another day also said he was a “bona fide resident” of Palm Beach, Florida, home to his Mar-a-Lago Club, according to the public records reviewed by the Post.Other voters have faced significant consequences for the same mistake. In fact, as some Democrats pointed out, the same issue is listed on White House website as voter fraud.> Beyond Trump's dangerous, dishonest claims of widespread voter fraud, it's really rich because the WH website uses the case of someone trying to vote at their second home as an example of voter fraud! https://t.co/syhg4fsehh pic.twitter.com/pEIyXy89Ck> > — American Bridge (@American_Bridge) June 3, 2020A city manager in Florida paid $5,000 in fines for putting the wrong address on her registration, as did a restaurateur in Palm Beach county. Florida Republicans also challenged state Democrats in 2018 in a vote-by-mail investigation, but the state found there was no fraud. Florida also tossed out thousands of mail-in ballots for supposedly having signatures that did not match original registration forms.Meanwhile, Democrats and some Republicans have called on states to ease vote-by-mail restrictions amid the pandemic. Tuesday’s primary election showed people waiting in line for hours in cities such as Washington DC, some of whom had not received absentee ballots in time.If this happens in November, election officials fear the public could be at risk for contracting Covid-19, as some did in Florida and Wisconsin during elections earlier this year.

At It Again: Russia's Black Sea Fleet Conducts Fresh Exercises

Deterrence never stops.

Coronavirus: Five-month-old Brazilian ‘miracle’ baby recovers after spending 32 days in coma

A five-month-old “miracle” baby has recovered from Covid-19 after spending over a month in a coma, his parents have said.Brazilian baby Dom was diagnosed with the novel virus at the Pro-Cardiaco hospital in Rio de Janeiro a few months after being born.

Finland's PM says she hopes to give birth while in office

Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin, the world's youngest leader at 34, told a magazine she would like to have a child while in office, which would make her only the third elected head of government to give birth while in power in modern times. "I am very much hoping for an addition to the family, a little sibling for Emma," her 2-year-old daughter, Marin told Me Naiset magazine in an interview. Marin took the reigns of Finland's centre-left five-party coalition in a sudden move at the end of last year, after her predecessor from her Social Democratic Party, Antti Rinne, stepped down.

Boris Johnson told Italy's prime minister the UK had been aiming for coronavirus herd immunity, new documentary reveals

Italian health minister Pierpaolo Sileri said Johnson's early COVID-19 plan was pursuing herd immunity in an interview with Channel 4's Dispatches.

Men charged in Ahmaud Arbery's murder to appear in court Thursday in Georgia

The three men accused in the murder of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia were scheduled to appear in court Thursday morning.

Israelis fear West Bank annexation will spark Palestinian uprising

Most Israelis think their government's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank will spark a Palestinian uprising but around half favour going ahead anyway, a poll showed Wednesday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to take steps towards annexation as soon as July 1, despite widespread international condemnation. The move forms part of a broader peace plan published by the United States, although Washington has not publicly backed Netanyahu's timetable.

Seattle protesters are using umbrellas to block pepper spray and tear gas, mirroring tactics used by the Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrations

Seattle anti police-brutality protesters showed up with umbrellas as a shield, and also as a potential new symbol in defiance of police action.

Bill Barr Takes Charge of Trump’s Crackdown as the Military Tries to Back Away

As President Trump continues to try and drum up support for his call for states to “dominate” protesters and beef up police presence against them, Attorney General Bill Barr and a team of senior Justice Department officials have quietly taken the lead on disrupting the protests and going after the petty criminals who may be using the demonstrations as cover. It’s been a controversial move, even within Barr’s own department. One federal prosecutor called Barr’s most high-profile effort to quell the unrest “politically-charged [and] bogus.” A senior law enforcement official called it “a political ploy to make being anti-Trump look like terrorism.”   In the early hours following clashes between protesters and police in Minneapolis on May 26, Barr and senior officials at DOJ began holding meetings and calls, strategizing ways to clamp down, two senior officials in the department told The Daily Beast. Scenes of looters ransacking local shops and vandalizing police buildings unnerved Barr, those officials said, and the attorney general directed his team to find a framework to identify and arrest those individuals and  charge them with federal crimes. The idea was to try and take control of the administration’s response to the protests by relying on the FBI’s regional counterterrorism hubs to share information with local law enforcement about, in Barr’s own words, “extremists.” It wasn’t immediately clear to senior justice officials working with Barr how the department would go about implementing an initiative focused on arresting and charging individuals with federal crimes on a nationwide scale. The fear was states would push back on Barr’s intervention, just as they had with Trump demanding they accept assistance from the National Guard. A third justice official said there was additional concern that the plan would require rigorous investigative and surveillance efforts that could take away from other ongoing law enforcement matters.That’s when Barr turned to an existing counterterrorism network—Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs)— led by the FBI that unite federal, state and local law enforcement to monitor and pursue suspected terrorists. A few days later, Barr communicated his plans to the nation’s governors. “The construction we are going to use is the JTTF. It’s a tried and true system. It worked for domestic homegrown terrorists. We’re going to apply that model,” Barr said on the call. “It already integrates your state and local people. It’s intelligence driven. We want to lean forward and charge … anyone who violates a federal law in connection with this rioting.”President Trump technically ran the call with the governors, directing them to punch “hashtag two” to get on the line to ask questions. But the president repeatedly handed the reins over to Barr. “We will activate Bill Barr and we will activate him strongly,” Trump said. Barr, under questioning from Gov. Janet Mills of Maine, laid out his thinking on why states needed to “dominate” the streets. “We need to have people in control of the streets so we can go out and work with law enforcement ... identify these people in the crowd, pull them out and prosecute them,” Barr said.In the past week, federal officers have charged three individuals in New York and two in Minnesota for alleged involvement in Molotov cocktail attacks on municipal properties. And on Monday, following the president’s remarks in Lafayette Park in which he threatened states with sending in active military personnel to their cities, arrest numbers more than doubled in DC and New York City.  ‘Uncomfortable Mission’: Pentagon Tries to Retreat From Trump’s Call to ‘Dominate’ ProtestsThe attorney general’s efforts to crack down on individuals involved in the protests shows the extent to which the Department of Justice is playing a leading role in the administration’s response to the chaos that has ensnared cities across the U.S. Meanwhile, Trump this week sheltered in a bunker as protests grew in Washington and posed for a photo op, with a bible, in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, and said he would take any means necessary to stop “acts of domestic terror.” As the Pentagon has moved to distance itself from Trump’s rhetoric about militarizing American cities, the Department of Justice appears to be using a different tactic: aggression. The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment on this story.Barr’s enthusiasm for the crackdown is conspicuous. It stands in marked contrast to the Pentagon, which is reeling from its leadership’s decision to appear beside Trump after park police, supported by National Guardsmen, violently cleared Lafayette Park from peaceful protesters so the president could stage a photo op – reportedly Barr’s idea. Two days later, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, under withering criticism for his tacit endorsement of the action, publicly rejected Trump’s threat to use the active-duty military against the protesters, something that has jeopardized Esper’s standing in the administration. To those close to Trump, it is no surprise that the president has given Barr such a broad professional mandate in imposing their particular mold of law and order as the civil unrest has spread. “[For days], the president has [bragged to officials] how ‘tough’ the attorney general is, and that if anyone can restore order, it’s this guy,” according to a senior administration official. “The president sees Barr as [the] ‘bad cop’ he can unleash if states and cities don’t get their act together.”A senior official at the Department of Justice said there is a small team working to track the results of the attorney general’s directive that more resources be put toward investigating and prosecuting “agitators.” In Washington, there have been a little over 100 arrests that went to the local U.S. attorneys office. Of those arrested, 75 were charged but only one person was charged with a federal crime for breaking into a bank, according to a senior justice official. There are eight federal charges pending in the city, that person said. None of the defendants were charged with rioting.According to multiple current and former Justice Department and law enforcement officials, Barr is misusing the Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) in support of President Trump’s insistence that antifascists are “terrorists” exploiting the nationwide protests. Antifa is not an organization, nor is there a domestic terrorism statute for designating them terrorists. The early federal charges emerging from Barr’s crackdown concern crimes like arson, not terrorism-related offenses. And in Nevada, three men with ties to a right-wing extremists advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government were arrested on terrorism-related charges for a conspiracy to carry out acts of violence during protests in Las Vegas. Veteran law enforcement officials point to the gulf between Barr’s treatment of the left-wing protesters and far more violent right-wing elements whom the Justice Department has not prioritized. Barr Promises to Sic Terror-Hunters on ProtestersA federal prosecutor who requested anonymity said the use of the JTTF against the protests revealed Barr’s double standards, as right-wing violence – aimed unlike the protesters against people, rather than property – has yet to register as a priority. “We didn’t hear anything about the Justice Department calling on JTTFs after, say, a manifesto-writing lunatic murdered people in Wal-Mart, or another political-slogan-spouting crazy sent bombs to Soros’ house in New York,” the prosecutor said. The prosecutor considered Barr’s behavior over the protests to be “a new low” for the attorney general. “He attributes all the violent, destructive activity in the protests to ‘left-wing antifa’ elements. He has no evidence to back that up whatsoever,” the prosecutor said. Another senior law enforcement official said that using the JTTF against the protesters is “a political ploy to make being anti-Trump look like terrorism.” Two officials familiar with JTTF operations described cases against protesters being turned over from counterterrorism-focused participants to federal prosecutors and FBI special agents to determine what activity violates existing federal statutes.The FBI portrayed its use of the JTTFs in relation to the protests as a repurposing of a network it already had in place to connect its agents to local police in the cities where the protests are occurring, rather than an indication that “antifa” or other protesters represented a terrorist threat. “JTTFs are being utilized as an existing partnership of federal, state, and local law enforcement that is already in place. Their focus is on identifying and disrupting criminal activity and as such, the statutory limitations around domestic use of national security intelligence authorities apply,” the FBI told the Daily Beast in a statement. Still, federal prosecutors and JTTF veterans expressed concern about the propriety of aiming a tool for counterterrorism at protesters, particularly when the FBI concedes that the JTTF focus is on criminal activity rather than terrorism.  In other words, the JTTFs are a mechanism of convenience rather than an indication of any terrorist element within the protests: “If we were invaded by Mars, we’d use JTTFs, an existing partnership, for an anti-Martian task force,” said the federal prosecutor. The greater issue, the prosecutor continued, is a “politically-charged, bogus attempt to attribute all this to left-wing activity and the use of inappropriate means to respond. Civil society leaders everywhere are able to draw the distinction between peaceful protesters, property crimes and people throwing bricks at cops, and Barr is unable to make this distinction.”Mystery Officers Patrolling D.C. Streets Are From Federal PrisonsBarr’s focus is also conspicuous for overlooking the most violent element in the protests: the police, whose slaying of George Floyd – and thousands of African-American men, women and children before him – sparked the nationwide protests. In New York City, videos surfaced on social media showing police officers plowing through protesters with their cars. In Atlanta, officers dragged college students from a car and shot them with stun guns. In Manhattan on Sunday night, a Daily Beast reporter saw at least three police officers take nightsticks to a protester who was already on the ground after he ran from an officer who had unholstered his gun. By contrast, dozens of individuals involved in protests throughout the country—many of them white—have smashed storefronts, stealing clothes and other merchandise, and some set fire to police cars. The Trump administration actively encourages police violence on people, while describing as “terrorism” crimes that are largely against property. Still, Barr is not without his high-profile supporters. Ever since his handling of the unveiling of the Mueller report, Barr has become not just a favorite of the president’s, but a folk hero throughout Trumpworld.“Bill has tremendous insight and knowledge both of the applicable laws and the conditional implications of the current situation. The president made a wise choice in nominating Bill Barr to be attorney general, and he has served the country well and will continue to do so [in this crisis],” said Jay Sekulow, a Trump attorney who has known Barr for years. “He’s doing a phenomenal job.”—with additional reporting by Asawin SuebsaengRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

The U.S. Army's New Weapon of Mass Destruction: Swarm Drones?

Here's what we mean.

China's Covid slump prompts return of disparaged street vendors to boost economy

They were only recently regarded by the Chinese authorities as a scourge on the well-ordered landscape of their brave new world. But now the Communist Party is praising the country’s street vendors as one of the solutions to the economic slowdown sparked by China’s deadly coronavirus pandemic. After years of cracking down on street vendors in order to 'beautify' its cities and improve hygiene standards, China is now allowing them back to give its Covid-ravaged economy a boost. Chinese premier Li Keqiang gave them his blessing when he recently praised the city of Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, for apparently generating 100,000 jobs overnight by allowing 36,000 street vendors to set up shop. Signalling a more tolerant attitude to the hustle and bustle of street stalls and markets, China's Central Civilization Committee office has said it will not include vendors who occupy outdoor spaces or other public areas in its city assessment program for 2020, indicating a temporary relaxation on the management of the sector. At the same time a delegate from China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress, called for the relaxation of controls on street vendors to grant them legal status. It came after local government officials appeared to give the green light for the return of street stalls, with pictures of vendors setting up shop to sell shoes, clothes and vegetables along a sidewalk in Chengdu going viral on social media. Officials in the city essentially turned a blind eye to street vendors operating without permits. For many it brought back memories of the city’s long lost bustling street life, with people posting under the hashtag “street vendor economy” and photographs of night markets circulating widely online. The move has been welcomed by the vendors, who are usually unemployed or from low-income families. Song, a 59-year-old street vendor in Beijing, said: "I feel that mobile stalls should be allowed, since if a small cart is used, it won't affect road traffic, and people can get things cheaper than in bigger stores." Some economists predict lifting restrictions on street vendors will lead to a jobs surge. Tian Yun, vice director of the Beijing Economic Operation Association, predicted that agricultural produce markets, small commodity markets and morning markets could create at least 100 million jobs. "Last year, one point of GDP growth was estimated to have generated about 2 million jobs. Assuming that there are 5 to 6 million new street stalls this year, it can be equivalent to about 2-3 percentage points of GDP growth," he told the Global Times. One immediate spin-off has been a surge in the stock value of Wulin Motors, which sells a cargo van that can turn into a mobile stall.

Fossilized stomach contents show armored dinosaur's leafy last meal

In a forest rebounding after a wildfire 110 million years ago, an armored dinosaur devoured a meal of tender ferns in western Canada before suffering a sudden death - perhaps drowning in a river or a flash flood - and being washed out to sea. Scientists said on Wednesday the fossilized stomach contents of the dinosaur, called Borealopelta markmitchelli, were preserved in exquisite detail with its skeleton, revealing what was on the menu for its last meal. The fossil, from the province of Alberta, represents the best-preserved stomach contents of any plant-eating dinosaur, revealing even the cellular structure of the leaves and intact spores.

Minneapolis public school board votes to terminate its contract with police

The district ‘cannot align itself with the Minneapolis police and claim to fight institutional racism’, said a board memberMinneapolis public schools are terminating their contract with the city’s police department following the death of George Floyd.The city’s public school board unanimously approved a resolution on Tuesday night that will end the district’s contract with the Minneapolis police department to use officers to provide school security. The Minneapolis superintendent said he would begin work on an alternative plan to keep the district’s more than 35,000 students safe in the coming school year.  “We cannot continue to be in partnership with an organization that has the culture of violence and racism that the Minneapolis police department has historically demonstrated,” Nelson Inz, one of the school board members, said. “We have to stand in solidarity with our black students.”While the vote does not bring justice for Floyd, “it will show that meaningful change is possible,” Nathaniel Genene, the school board’s student representative, said.Genene said an online survey of Minneapolis students had received more than 1,500 responses, and about 90% of them supported terminating the district’s contract with the police.Public schools “cannot partner with organizations that do not see the humanity in our students”, Minneapolis school board member Josh Pauly, who helped draft the resolution, wrote on Twitter last week.The school district “cannot align itself with [the Minneapolis police department] and claim to fight institutional racism”, Pauly added. The Minneapolis teachers union had endorsed the change, calling for the city’s schools to “cut all financial ties” with the police department, and to invest in additional mental health support for students instead.“The officers of the Minneapolis police department have become symbols of fear to the children those officers were sworn to serve and protect,” two local union officials said in a statement last week. During the school board meeting, several members praised the work of individual police officers who had served in Minneapolis public schools as “school resource officers” and said at least a few of the officers did have deep, meaningful community relationships that would be missed.But Pauly, the school board member, told the Guardian in advance of the vote that he had received hundreds of emails and phone calls from students in Minneapolis who support ending the school district’s relationship with the police department.Other school board members across the country – including from districts in Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon, New York, and Illinois – have also reached out privately for support in crafting similar resolutions, he said.A vote to end Minneapolis schools’ contract with the police department is a major victory for activists across the country who have been working to remove all police from schools. “It’s a very specific group of people who feel safe with police, but most black and brown children do not feel safe with police in schools,” said Jackie Byers, the executive director of the Black Organizing Project, which has been working since 2011 to end the use of police officers in Oakland public schools, including asking teachers and administrators to pledge to not call the police on their students.School districts “need to see someone step forward”, Byers said. “Folks are afraid of being the first district to do something.”More than 70% of public secondary schools and 30% of primary schools in the United States have sworn law enforcement officers who routinely carry firearms, according to 2015-2016 data from the National Center for Education Statistics.“In San Francisco, we’ve had 10-year-olds that have had the police called on them. Kindergarteners. Fifth-graders,” said Neva Walker, the executive director of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, a non-profit group that focuses on creating more equitable public schools.“We have to get past the idea that police are the means to protect our children, especially for black and brown students,” she said.For decades, school shootings, typically carried out by young white men, have prompted the American government to invest hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in putting armed law enforcement officers inside schools.But studies have shown that more students enter the criminal justice system when more police officers are in schools, sparking concern from some advocates that the attempt to protect American children from mass shootings had unintentionally fueled a school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately harms students of color.Breaking that cycle has not been easy. But one “critically important” step forward, Byers said, had already come from the University of Minnesota, which announced “immediate changes” in its relationship with the Minneapolis police department in the wake of widespread protests over Floyd’s death. The university president, Joan Gabel, said in a letter last week that the university would no longer work with the police department to provide security for football games, concerts and other large events, and that it would limit its cooperation with the police to joint patrols and investigations “that directly enhance the safety of our community”. The university’s relationship with other police departments in other cities where it has campuses will remain unchanged, a spokesman said. The Minneapolis police department did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

Pandemic brings 1st Australian recession in 29 years

The coronavirus pandemic pushed Australia’s economy into recession for the first time in 29 years in the first quarter of the year, and the situation is expected to get worse. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Wednesday the current June quarter will be the second in a row in which the Australian economy has contracted. A recession is defined as at least two straight quarters of contraction.

Fauci says he's optimistic about coronavirus vaccine protection but concerned how long it will last

In an interview with JAMA editor-in-chief Howard Bauchner, Dr. Anthony Fauci questioned the 'durability' of these candidate vaccines.

Storms in the Houston area while all eyes are on Tropical Storm Cristobal

Scattered storms are likely today as a disturbance moves in. Tropical Storm Cristobal bears watching in the Gulf.