Big Time News Blog: 11/10/19

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Bolivia's Morales resigns after protests over disputed October vote

Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Sunday he would resign after the military called on him to step down and allies deserted him following weeks of protests over a disputed election that has roiled the South American nation.

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Mexico says it would offer asylum to Bolivia's Morales if he sought it

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Sunday that the country would offer asylum to embattled Bolivian President Evo Morales if he sought it, saying on Twitter that Mexico has received 20 Bolivian officials and lawmakers at its residence in La Paz.

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‘It Was Horrible’: Man Killed in Gruesome Brawl at Homeless Shelter

By BY CHRISTINA GOLDBAUM from NYT New York https://ift.tt/36Qr4td

Trump camp using impeachment in get-out-the vote push

Gregory Hafen II looked out at a small group of fellow Republicans and tried to hammer home just how wronged he thinks President Donald Trump has been. The impeachment investigation in Washington is a mere political attack, he argued. At doorsteps and protests, in phone calls and social media posts, Trump's campaign is marshalling its army of devoted followers to defend the president against the threat of impeachment.

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Roommate, boyfriend arrested in death of Atlanta college student Alexis Crawford

Alexis Crawford was reported missing Nov. 1, five days after she filed a report accusing her roommate's boyfriend of "unwanted kissing and touching."

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Senate Democrats Face Their Own Risks Over Impeachment

WASHINGTON -- For Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who is seeking a third term next year in a traditional swing state, a vote on whether to oust President Donald Trump months before they both face voters would be difficult under any circumstances.It is all the more daunting for Shaheen because she might have to do so while facing the closest thing to the president himself: Corey Lewandowski, the combative former Trump campaign manager who hails from New Hampshire and has threatened to challenge her."It should be a tough vote for everybody because we should take this issue seriously," Shaheen said of a vote to impeach the president. "People ought to be looking at how real the allegations are, whether they are impeachable offenses and whether the president engaged in them."While much attention has been focused on how Senate Republicans will cope with an impeachment trial, the prospect presents its own challenges for Democrats in their uphill fight to win back the Senate majority.A handful of senators running for reelection -- notably Doug Jones, D-Ala. -- could suffer a backlash for voting to remove a president popular with many in their states. If the impeachment trial is seen as an unfair partisan exercise or an overreach, it could hurt rising Democratic chances to topple incumbents in places like Iowa and North Carolina.And if the party splintered over articles of impeachment approved by the House, it would undercut the Democratic message that Trump is guilty of an abuse of power that Republicans are ignoring. It would also make it even harder to assemble a symbolic majority against the president, let alone the two-thirds supermajority required to remove him."There is political risk for Senate Democrats as well as Senate Republicans," said Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections and a nonpartisan analyst of congressional races. "A lot will depend on what is the case, what is the situation when it gets to the Senate, and how did the House handle it."Senate Democratic strategists say their incumbents and challengers are in a much better political position than embattled Republicans like Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado, Susan Collins of Maine and Martha McSally of Arizona. Their votes could either alienate independent voters they may need to win in a difficult year or anger the Republican base. Operatives also say it is far too soon to weigh the consequences of the vote for Democrats given that the House is still in the early stages of its own impeachment review and no articles have even been made public.Still, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, is taking steps to assist his colleagues in preparing for an impeachment trial. The leader's office has gathered material -- including information from past impeachment battles, historical facts and developments in the current case -- in a digital hub available to Democratic offices. Senators have continued to discuss the state of play in their private lunches and are also meeting in smaller groups to plot strategy.Schumer, in conference calls last month and in conversations with colleagues, has also offered messaging advice. The basic thrust is that Democrats should support the House effort, call for the House investigation to continue unimpeded so all of the facts can emerge, emphasize the seriousness of the coming trial, avoid prejudging the case, and press Republicans to take up sidelined legislation while the Senate awaits House action."Nobody is happy about the fact that the House is examining the potential impeachment of the president," Schumer said this week, heeding his own counsel. "It has always been a sad and somber process. But there is no excuse for jumping to conclusions."Republicans believe the Democrat most threatened by impeachment is Jones, who is confronting a very difficult environment in Alabama -- a Trump stronghold where he will need Republican support if he is to prevail. Jones has called the emerging details of Trump's actions toward Ukraine "disturbing" but has said he will await more information."Our job is to carefully analyze and review the facts," he said in a recent floor speech.Republicans also hope that impeachment will squeeze Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., who is running for a second term in a state Trump narrowly won in 2016. Peters, too, has emphasized the need for thorough fact-finding.In addition to possible pressure on incumbent Democrats, Republicans say that voter resentment over impeachment and a trial of the president could help incumbents in battleground states hold on to their seats. One of those incumbents, McSally of Arizona, earlier told Politico that the Democratic impeachment drive was a "kamikaze mission" that would allow Republicans to hold the Senate.Even for more moderate Democrats in safer seats, a vote to oust the president will not be automatic, some analysts believe."I think every Senate Democrat will look at it through their own lens," said Jonathan Kott, a former adviser to Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., who is heading a group working to protect moderate congressional Democrats. "The ones who are lawyers and on Judiciary will look at it through a law and order lens. The ones who were there for the Clinton impeachment will take a more historic and precedent approach to impeachment. But all will take it seriously, and it is in no way a slam dunk."Democrats say there is a strong likelihood that neither Manchin nor Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., would vote to convict Trump, meaning at least 22 Republicans would then have to defect to reach the 67-vote threshold for removal from office.It would also require at least six Republicans to produce a majority vote, a symbolic hurdle that some Democrats say would send a strong signal about the president's conduct. In the 1999 Senate trial of President Bill Clinton, no article of impeachment won a majority, although there was a 50-50 tie on the article alleging obstruction of justice.As for Lewandowski, he told reporters in New Hampshire this week that he would decide by the end of the year if he would run, and that part of his calculation would be whether he and the president believed he could be more helpful fighting impeachment as a candidate or as an outside advocate.Should the House approve articles of impeachment against Trump in the coming weeks, as is expected, Shaheen will not have that choice. She will be involved in any impeachment trial both as a senator and a candidate, and will ultimately have to take a stance."I will base my judgment on what is in the articles and what the evidence is that has come out," she said. "But I'm not going to do that now."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company

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Spaniards Vote in Repeat Election Amid Pleas to Break Logjam

(Bloomberg) -- Spaniards go to the polls on Sunday for the second time this year as the country strives to break a political logjam that’s threatening economic momentum and allowing disputes over national unity to fester.Polling booths opened at 9 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. with voters choosing 350 deputies and 208 senators.It’s a procedure Spanish voters are now well-accustomed to -- this election is the fourth since 2015 -- but the campaign is different from the last contest in April. Political opinion has been further splintered in recent weeks by the exhumation of the late dictator Francisco Franco and a court decision to sentence the former leaders of the Catalan independence movement to lengthy jail terms.Even so, the result may be similar: a deadlock in which neither alliances of forces on the left and right have a clear path to form a government. Unless the warring factions can find a compromise, they may face a backlash from an angry electorate unwilling to sanction yet another election.Turnout dipped slightly relative to the previous poll, with 56.9% of voters having cast their ballots by 6 p.m. compared to 60.7% at the same time in the April 28 election, according to data published by the Interior Ministry.Surveys taken before a polling blackout began on Nov. 5 showed the Socialists of acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in the lead, but struggling to maintain the momentum they had in April.The main opposition, the People’s Party, looked set to stage a partial recovery from its previous poor result, while Ciudadanos is set to hemorrhage support. It was a centrist party before it started to zig-zag across the political map in search of votes.If Sanchez is to form a government, he may have to repair relations with Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, an anti-austerity party that shares many of the Socialists’ social goals. Attempts to forge an alliance over the summer ended in recriminations over differences on how to handle Catalan separatism.Vox, a Spanish nationalist party, looks poised for a strong showing. That’s partly due to a backlash among conservative Spanish voters to the rioting in Catalan cities since jail terms totaling 100 years were handed down to nine separatist leaders for their part in staging a bid to split from Spain in 2017.Sanchez’s decision last month to go ahead with the exhumation of Franco from his tomb in a mountain basilica outside Madrid has also mobilized Vox’s support. By sharpening antipathies over the ideological divide of the Spanish Civil War, Sanchez is trying to energize his own base of supporters.These dramas have played out against the broader canvass of a slowing economy.On Tuesday, Spain’s statistics agency published data showing the ranks of the registered unemployed had swelled by nearly 100,000 in October, a 3.2% increase that was the biggest monthly percentage jump since January 2012 when the country was in full financial crisis.While Spanish growth is still strong compared with other European Union peers, the economy became an election issue in the last days of the campaign.(Updates with turnout data in fifth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Rodrigo Orihuela.To contact the reporter on this story: Charles Penty in Madrid at cpenty@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Marion Dakers, James AmottFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Navy Submarine, Missing for 75 Years, Is Found Off Okinawa

By BY JOHN ISMAY from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2rwt61v

Small plane crashes in Texas during 'gender reveal' stunt

Passenger injured as pilot slowed plane at low altitude to ‘dump 350 gallons of pink water’ in stunt gone badly wrongGender reveal parties let expecting parents reveal whether they are going to have a boy or a girl. Stunts gone wrong have become a staple of online reporting. Photograph: Beautyinoddplaces/Getty Images/iStockphotoIn another instance of a “gender reveal” stunt gone badly wrong, a small plane crashed in Texas after “dump[ing] about 350 gallons of pink water” to indicate that a friend of the pilot was going to have a daughter.According to a National Transportation Safety Board report into the crash, which happened near the town of Turkey on 7 September, “the pilot reported, that while maneuvering at a low altitude in an aerial applicator airplane, he dumped about 350 gallons of pink water for a gender reveal.“The airplane ‘got too slow’, aerodynamically stalled, impacted terrain and came to rest inverted.”The pilot reported no mechanical failures or malfunctions before the plane crashed.The NTSB report added: “The Federal Aviation Administration inspector … [said] there were two persons on board the single-seat airplane.”The pilot was not injured. The passenger suffered minor injuries.Gender reveal parties let expecting parents reveal whether they are going to have a boy or a girl. Stunts gone wrong have become a staple of online reporting.In Iowa in October, a 56-year-old grandmother was killed when a device meant to shoot out coloured powder exploded instead.In Arizona in 2017, a man fired a rifle at a target that exploded, releasing blue powder. It also started a wildfire that burned 73 sq miles of mostly Forest Service land. The man was ordered to pay nearly $8m in restitution.Earlier this year, Jenna Karvunidis, a mother of three who in 2008 was one of the first people to hold a gender reveal, told the Guardian she “had released something bad into the world”.Aside from accidents, Karvunidis said she regretted the focus of such events on traditional notions of gender.“I started to realize that nonbinary people and trans people were feeling affected by this,” she said, “and I started to feel bad”.

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Indian court rules in favor of Hindus in dispute at heart of tension

The ruling paves the way for the building of a Hindu temple at a site where a mosque once stood

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Trump impeachment committee ‘has evidence of extortion scheme involving president’ and Ukraine

Politicians have evidence of an “extortion scheme” by Donald Trump to try to pressure a foreign government to investigate his opponents, a member of the House intelligence committee has said ahead of public impeachment hearings beginning this week.Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell told CBS’s Margaret Brennan on Sunday that there was already ample evidence that the president had abused his office.

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Mexico massacre unites Mormon sects, even their exiles

The 35-year-old Seattle homemaker had spent much of her life trying to keep away from her parents' self-described fundamentalist branch of the Mormon faith and Colonia LeBaron - her polygamist father's Mexico community where some of the massacre victims were from. “The massacre has simply allowed me to support and love family,” said Bostwick, a convert to Christianity, whose mother was 15 when she gave birth to her, and who was later adopted by her U.S. grandparents. The Nov. 4 killings have traumatized northern Mexico's breakaway Mormon communities.

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‘Fool’s trap’: Trump hits out at Republicans trying to form new impeachment defence ahead of public hearings

Donald Trump has hit out at Republicans trying to formulate a new defence for him ahead of the impeachment inquiry ramping up this week with televised public hearings.The president tweeted: “The call to the Ukrainian President was PERFECT. Read the Transcript! There was NOTHING said that was in any way wrong. Republicans, don’t be led into the fools trap of saying it was not perfect, but is not impeachable. No, it is much stronger than that. NOTHING WAS DONE WRONG!”

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After burying last victims, some in Mexico's breakaway Mormon community head north

Members of a breakaway Mormon community tucked in the hills of northern Mexico buried the last of their dead on Saturday after a devastating massacre, and some headed for safer ground in the United States. Hundreds of friends and family from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border gathered in rural Colonia LeBaron to honor Christina Langford, who died in an ambush on Monday that killed nine.

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Russian Historian Accused of Murdering His Student After Being Found Drunk in River With Bag of Severed Limbs

Denis Sinyakov/AFP/GettyA well-known Russian military historian and professor at St. Petersburg State University was found in a river in the center of the city early Saturday morning drunkenly trying to dispose of a woman’s severed arms, according to Russian media reports. Police reportedly soon found the woman’s decapitated head and body, along with a bloody saw, in his apartment, and divers are said to have found her legs in black plastic bags at the bottom of the Moyka River. The alleged historian-turned-murderer, identified by Russia’s Interfax news agency as 63-year-old Oleg Sokolov, has already confessed to the killing, according to his lawyer, Alexander Pochuyev. “If such a heinous crime, which my client has confessed to, did take place, it was committed under the influence of strong factors, possibly pathological intoxication or temporary insanity,” Pochuyev was quoted as saying by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Pochuyev added “the verdict has not been passed yet, and until that moment a person is forbidden to be considered guilty” under Russia’s Criminal Code.Sokolov has reportedly entered a plea bargain for the gruesome murder of the 24-year-old victim, tentatively identified by law enforcement sources as Anastasia Eshchenko, one of his students and his co-author on research projects about the French military rule of Napoleon Bonaparte. Police have not yet confirmed a motive, but several local media reports suggest Sokolov and Eshchenko had a closer relationship than that of a teacher and student. Interfax cited sources saying the two lived together. Sokolov is said to have told detectives during his interrogation that he purchased a saw to get rid of Eshchenko’s body and drank booze during the dismemberment because he “repeatedly felt sick.” He also reportedly said he planned to commit suicide afterwards wearing the uniform of Napoleon. Sokolov is considered one of Russia’s leading experts on Napoleonic wars, and is well-known for reenacting moments of Napoleonic history. He was awarded France’s Legion d’Honneur in 2003. Sokolov was also a member of France's Institute of Social Science, Economics and Politics, but he had been stripped of his position on its scientific committee Saturday, the society said in a statement.“We could never imagine that he could commit such an odious act,” as an academic of such high standing, the ISSEP said. The battle re-enactor was also initially listed as a member of the Russian Military Historical Society, but by Saturday evening the organization insisted it had no ties to him. Russian state media reports that Sokolov is detained in a hospital and is being treated for hypothermia.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.