Jet catches fire in Northern California; 10 aboard unhurt

All 10 people aboard a small jet escaped injury Wednesday after the aircraft aborted its takeoff at a small Northern California airport, went off the runway and burst into flames, officials said. The pilot of the twin-engine Cessna Citation jet aborted its takeoff at Oroville Municipal Airport for unknown reasons shortly before noon, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said. The plane was carrying two pilots and eight passengers, and "all were accounted for, no injuries," said Joe Deal, Oroville's fire and police chief.

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Why Kamala Harris Is Fading in the Democratic Primary

Anew national CNN poll of the 2020 Democratic primary has some pretty brutal numbers for Kamala Harris. When CNN last polled the presidential race shortly after the first Democratic debate in June, Harris was on Joe Biden’s heels, trailing just 17 percent to 22 percent. But according to the latest survey by CNN, conducted August 15 to 18, Biden has rebounded to 29 percent, while Harris has dropped all the way down to 5 percent, tied for fourth place with South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg.What went wrong for Harris?The second Democratic debate was a clear defeat for the California senator, but it’s now also obvious that her June debate performance was a Pyrrhic victory.At the first debate, Harris staked everything on attacking Joe Biden’s record on busing. It worked for her that night: Biden’s immediate response was hapless, Harris was widely declared the winner, and she got a significant bump in the polls.But Harris’s line of attack raised an obvious and problematic question for her: Would she support reinstating the policies that Biden opposed?Logically, the answer would appear to need to be “yes.”“I support busing. Listen, the schools of America are as segregated, if not more segregated, today than when I was in elementary school,” Harris said on June 30. “Where states fail to do their duty to ensure equality of all people and in particular where states create or pass legislation that created inequality, there’s no question that the federal government has a role and a responsibility to step up.”But there was a problem for Harris: Busing policies were abandoned because they were wildly unpopular, and there’s no reason to think they’ve magically become popular. So Harris equivocated and then backtracked.That attacking Biden on busing would paint the attacker into a corner was predictable. It was in fact predicted. See, for example, the end of this article from March in National Review. (Democratic strategists: Subscribe today!)Going on the offensive and then retreating on busing made Harris seem inauthentic. And the candidate had been dogged by questions of inauthenticity since the start of her campaign because of her waffling on the issue of Medicare for All, the policy at the center of the 2020 Democratic primary.First Harris indicated at a CNN town hall that she supported abolishing private insurance, as Medicare for All proposes. Then Harris said she didn’t support abolishing private insurance: She tried to hide behind the fig leaf that Medicare for All allows “supplemental insurance,” while obscuring the fact that “supplemental coverage” would be legal for only a very small number of treatments not covered by Medicare for All, such as cosmetic surgery. And cosmetic-surgery insurance doesn’t even exist.Harris thought she’d finally figured a way out of the Medicare for All mess in July: She introduced her own plan shortly before the Democratic debates. It tried to split the difference: She promised to transition to a single-payer plan in 10 years (as opposed to Sanders’s four-year deadline). This was meant to reassure progressives that they’ll get there eventually while also reassuring moderates that there will be at least two more presidential elections before the country goes through with anything crazy.Harris’s provision of Medicare Advantage–type plans was also supposed to reassure moderates, but the second debate demonstrated that she still wasn’t ready to respond to the fact that her plan would eventually abolish existing private health plans for everyone, and she has no serious plan for how to pay for single-payer.Then there were Joe Biden’s and Representative Tulsi Gabbard’s devastating attacks on Harris’s record as a prosecutor at the second Democratic debate. “Biden alluded to a crime lab scandal that involved her office and resulted in more than 1,000 drug cases being dismissed. Gabbard claimed Harris ‘blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until she was forced to do so.’ Both of these statements are accurate,” the Sacramento Bee reported after the debate.As Harris’s backtracking on busing made clear, no one is seriously considering resurrecting the deeply unpopular policies of the 1970s. But criminal justice is very much a live issue in Democratic politics, and that’s why the attack on Harris’s record as a prosecutor has had such a greater impact than the attack on Biden’s record on busing. Biden continues to do very well among African-American voters, while Harris continues to struggle.So Harris’s problems go deeper than the fact that she had one good debate followed by one bad debate on matters of style. Both debates revealed she has serious weaknesses on matters of substance. And the hits keep coming on Medicare for All: On Monday, she was savaged by Bernie Sanders after it was reported that Harris told wealthy donors in the Hamptons that she was not “comfortable” with Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All bill, which she co-sponsored and supported until a few weeks ago. There are still five months left until the Iowa caucuses, but the past two months have demonstrated that Harris has deep problems that she can’t paper over with some well-rehearsed, well-delivered lines in subsequent debates.

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Shooter at large after LA deputy shot at sheriff's station

A shooter remained at large after wounding a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy in a sheriff's station parking lot in the Mojave Desert city of Lancaster, authorities said. A search of the area concluded early Thursday without finding a suspect, said Deputy Morgan Arteaga, a department spokeswoman. The search had focused on a nearby building complex that provides housing to people with mental health issues.

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Farmer's threat prompts U.S. Agriculture Department to pull staff from crop tour

CORALVILLE, Iowa/CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Wednesday it had pulled all staff from an annual crop tour after an employee was threatened, and three sources said the threat of violence was made during a phone call from an angry farmer. U.S. farmers have complained this month that a government crop report did not reflect damage from historic flooding this spring. Lance Honig, crops chief at the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, was among the USDA staffers who had to leave the privately-run Pro Farmer tour, three sources with knowledge of the situation said.

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Arms Race Redux! A U.S. Intermediate Range Nuclear Missile Test Shows Russia Was Right to Worry

Scott HoweThe U.S. military has test-fired a new kind of nuclear-capable cruise missile. A weapon that, just 16 days earlier, was banned from the American and Russian arsenals under a 1987 treaty.The successful test on Sunday of an intermediate-range, ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missile reintroduces a previously defunct type of atomic weapon, effectively reversing 32 years of successful arms-control. It also appears to confirm Russia’s fears about American intentions as Washington and Moscow backslide into Cold War-style mutual mistrust. A Missile Explosion, a Radiation Spike, and Kremlin Secrecy Bring Back Memories of ChernobylThe Pentagon tried to portray the Sunday launch in California as just a boring trial. “Data collected and lessons learned from this test will inform [the Defense Department’s] development of future intermediate-range capabilities,” the military stated. But to Russia, the trial launch was a huge insult. It was what Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, called the “arms-control equivalent of a ‘Murica gif,’” a jingoistic internet meme featuring, say, a bald eagle firing a machine gun. And it’s likely to raise further the already elevated risk of nuclear war.The test-firing involved a ground-launched version of the Tomahawk cruise missile, for decades a staple of the Pentagon’s high-tech arsenal. Most Tomahawks are non-nuclear, however. The military dismantled the ground-launched, nuclear models back in 1991 in order to comply with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty that U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev negotiated in the mid-1980s and President Donald Trump finally ditched this month.The INF treaty banned from Europe all nuclear-tipped missile with ranges between 310 and 3,400 miles. The U.S. and Soviet governments considered these small, quick-striking missiles —1,500 on the Soviet side and 400 on the American side in 1987— particularly destabilizing and more likely than larger, farther-flying and slower-reacting rockets to trigger atomic Armageddon.But a few years ago the INF began to fray. In 2011, the Obama administration warned that new, intermediate-range nuclear-armed cruise missiles—under development in Russia since 2008—could violate the terms of the treaty. In mid-2013 the U.S. State Department first raised the issue with the Kremlin. Later the same year, the White House formally announced that Russia was in violation of the accord.U.S. moves helped to accelerate Russian developments. In 2015 the Pentagon began installing so-called “Aegis Ashore” missile defenses in Romania and Poland. The non-nuclear SM-3 missile-interceptors are designed to hit ballistic missiles launched by Iran at the United States.But many Russians believed the United States planned to secretly add nuclear weapons to the European missile-defense sites, all in violation of the INF treaty and as preparation for an atomic sneak-attack on the motherland. Robert Gates, defense secretary under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, had warned about that dangerous perception as far back as 2009.The Russians’ belief wasn’t unfounded. The SM-3 sites in Romania and Poland feature land-based versions of the U.S. Navy’s Mk. 41 vertical-launch system, a kind of generic metal box that can launch almost kind of missile that physically can fit inside it. Navy ships fire non-nuclear Tomahawks from Mk. 41 launchers. It always has been entirely possible for the Pentagon to equip the European sites with nuclear-tipped Tomahawks. And the Russians always have known it. “Although it was never U.S. intent to slip intermediate-range nukes through the back door of Aegis Ashore, the Russians were justifiably concerned,” Bruce Blair, a Princeton University nuclear expert, told The Daily Beast.Russia responded to this apparent threat by developing a new, treaty-busting nuclear system of its own -- the SS-C-8 cruise missile. Moscow deployed the first battery of operational SS-C-8s to its western frontier in 2017, U.S. officials claimed. A little over a year later, the Trump administration announced its intention to withdraw from the INF. “The United States will not remain party to a treaty that is deliberately violated by Russia,” the State Department stated at the time. The Trump administration completed the withdrawal process on Aug. 2. The State Department told The Daily Beast it was not yet prepared to comment further.But from the Russian point of view, it was the United States that first violated INF when, in the final years of President George W. Bush’s administration, it began the process of installing Mk. 41 launchers in Eastern Europe. “The recent Tomahawk test only bolsters their argument,” Blair said of the Russians.It’s unfair solely to blame hawkish Republican presidents for bending INF, backing the Russians into a nuclear-arms corner and then canceling a treaty that both countries seemed determined to undermine. Obama’s administration also embraced Aegis Ashore and its provocative launchers. “Obama had to know, or should have known, that the decision was a violation of the terms of the INF treaty,” Ted Postol, a nuclear expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The Daily Beast. “Either the president wasn’t informed, or his advisors were either brain-dead or complicit in making a very bad decision.” “It would be interesting to hear what Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton have to say about this matter,” Postol added.In fairness to successive U.S. administrations, Postol said Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland would make poor nuclear-launch sites, as their fixed locations and proximity to Russia make them vulnerable to Russian attack. Spies, Lies, and Radioactivity: Russia’s Nuke Missile Mishap, DecodedBut the potential foolishness of arming the sites with nukes doesn’t necessarily diminish how dangerous they seem from the Russian perspective. Sunday’s missile test adds insult to injury, seemingly making a mockery of years of American claims that it was Russia alone that wanted to roll back decades of successful arms-control.The whole world could pay the price for America’s nuclear negligence and Russia’s acute sensitivity to even the theoretical possibility of U.S. nukes on its European border. Thanks to a decade of missteps and mutual mistrust, quick-striking nukes are back, in a big way. “No matter how one looks at this situation,” Postol said, “it makes no sense and must be considered a strategic blunder that has substantively increased the chances of an accidental nuclear war.” 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.

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US mental health staff warned not to contradict Trump after mass shootings

When Donald Trump targeted mental illness as the cause of the mass shootings that killed 31 people in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, federal health officials made sure no government experts might contradict him.A Health and Human Services (HHS) directive on 5 August warned communication staffers not to post anything on social media related to mental health, violence and mass shootings without prior approval.

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Trump touts quote calling him 'second coming of God' to Jews in Israel

A day after saying American Jews who vote for Democrats show “great disloyalty,” President Trump touted comments from a conservative radio host who said that Jews in Israel "love him" like a king or the Messiah.

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UPDATE 3-Employee of Britain's Hong Kong mission held in China over prostitution -report

An employee of the British consulate in Hong Kong has been detained in China for involvement in prostitution, the state-backed Global Times newspaper said on Thursday, as Britain said it continued to urgently seek information. China's foreign ministry confirmed on Wednesday that the employee, Simon Cheng, had been detained in the border city of Shenzhen neighbouring Hong Kong. In a report on its English-language website, the paper, published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, cited Shenzhen police as saying Cheng had been detained for 15 days for "solicitation of prostitution".



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Trump’s new press secretary was arrested for DUI while working on the 2016 campaign during her rocky rise to the White House

Stephanie Grisham has taken an unconventional approach to her White House post, and hasn't held a single on-camera briefing since taking over in July.

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Farmer's threat prompts U.S. Agriculture Department to pull staff from crop tour

CORALVILLE, Iowa/CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Wednesday it had pulled all staff from an annual crop tour after an employee was threatened, and three sources said the threat of violence was made during a phone call from an angry farmer. U.S. farmers have complained this month that a government crop report did not reflect damage from historic flooding this spring. Lance Honig, crops chief at the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, was among the USDA staffers who had to leave the privately-run Pro Farmer tour, three sources with knowledge of the situation said.

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Interpol issues red notice for former Colombian guerrilla leader

Interpol on Thursday issued a red notice for a fugitive Colombian lawmaker and former FARC rebel commander who the United States wants extradited for alleged conspiracy to export 10 tonnes of cocaine. Seuxis Paucias Hernandez - known best by his guerrilla nom de guerre Jesus Santrich - was indicted in 2017 by a U.S. grand jury, setting off a legal saga that has seen him twice arrested and released. Hernandez has denied the U.S. allegations.

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Trump touts quote calling him 'second coming of God' to Jews in Israel

A day after saying American Jews who vote for Democrats show “great disloyalty,” President Trump touted comments from a conservative radio host who said that Jews in Israel "love him" like a king or the Messiah.

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Overstock CEO resigns over relationship with Russian 'spy'

The chief executive of the e-commerce firm Overstock.com stepped down Thursday over his relationship with an alleged Russian intelligence operative jailed for meddling in US politics. Patrick Byrne only recently admitted that he had a close relationship with Maria Butina for three years, during the period when she beguiled top Republican and National Rifle Association officials with talk of strengthening Moscow-Washington relations and her flair with guns.

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UPDATE 3-Employee of Britain's Hong Kong mission held in China over prostitution -report

An employee of the British consulate in Hong Kong has been detained in China for involvement in prostitution, the state-backed Global Times newspaper said on Thursday, as Britain said it continued to urgently seek information. China's foreign ministry confirmed on Wednesday that the employee, Simon Cheng, had been detained in the border city of Shenzhen neighbouring Hong Kong. In a report on its English-language website, the paper, published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, cited Shenzhen police as saying Cheng had been detained for 15 days for "solicitation of prostitution".

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Catholic Priest Abuse Survivors' Group Says It's 'Cowardly' That Convicted Cardinal Has Not Been Defrocked

'I don't know what other proof any organization needs other than a conviction'

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Australian state ends Chinese education program over foreign interference fears

Australia's most populous state said it will ax a Chinese-funded education program that teaches Mandarin in schools amid fears over potential foreign influence.

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Trump lashes out after economic gloom deepens, as he jokes about trading Puerto Rico for Greenland

Donald Trump had a much quieter day after yesterday's marathon spew. He started the morning off by renewing his criticism of the Federal Reserve, accusing it of “moving like quicksand” compared to Germany’s central bank, despite insisting the US economy is “strong”, refuting analysts' fears a recession is imminent and backing away from tax cuts. After that, he appeared to take the day off from social media, possibly at the hands of concerned aides, or maybe just after tiring himself out.The morning's attack follows the president’s address to the American Veterans 75th National Convention in Kentucky on Wednesday evening, where he joked about awarding himself the Medal of Honor and trailed the idea of dumping thousands of captured Isis fighters on Europe.

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Denmark reacts with shock and anger as 'disrespectful' Trump cancels trip over Greenland sale row

Denmark’s political leaders and royal family have expressed shock after Donald Trump cancelled a state visit to the country over their refusal to consider selling Greenland. Mette Frederikse, the Danish prime minister, said she was “disappointed” by the decision while a spokesman for the Danish royal palace admitted it had been taken by “surprise”. Less diplomatic responses came from former politicians and opposition figures who said the US president's behaviour was “grotesque”, “smug” and “disrespectful”. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former Danish prime minister, tweeted: “Is this some sort of joke? Deeply insulting to the people of Greenland and Denmark.” The outpouring of frustration came after Mr Trump made clear that his interest in buying Greenland, an autonomous country which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, was not a joke.  On Monday, Mr Trump appeared to play up the comic aspect of his considerations, tweeting a picture of a vast gold Trump hotel, writing: “I promise not to do this to Greenland!” I promise not to do this to Greenland! pic.twitter.com/03DdyVU6HA— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2019 But on Tuesday night he announced that due to the flat-out rejection by Denmark he would be cancelling a trip on September 2 and 3, which was planned after an invitation by the Danish royal family. “Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time,” he wrote.  “The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!” The remarks clearly indicated that the refusal to consider selling Greenland, a country with a population of 56,000 people which is mainly covered by an ice sheet, was to blame for the cancellation.  Mr Trump had said over the weekend that Greenland’s strategic benefits – there is renewed geopolitical interest in the Arctic as its ice caps melt – and natural resources made it an alluring proposition.  He has also referenced former US president Harry Truman’s attempts to buy the island for $100 million after the Second World War, a move taken in part because of military benefits that would have followed. So the POTUS has cancelled his visit to Denmark because there was no interest in discussing selling Greenland @BBCRadio4 Is this some sort of joke? Deeply insulting to the people of Greenland and Denmark.— Helle Thorning S (@HelleThorning_S) August 21, 2019 However, defending the cancellation, Mr Trump indicated that it was actually the way in which the Danish prime minister had rejected the proposal that was really to blame.  “I thought that the prime minister’s statement that is was an ‘absurd’ idea was nasty,” Mr Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.  “I thought it was an inappropriate statement. All she had to do is say ‘no, we wouldn’t be interested’.”  The two-day trip had been designed as a way to celebrate Denmark’s recent past in standing with America, not least in military campaigns in the Middle East.  More than 40 Danish soldiers have been killed in US-led missions in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan – a stark number given the country's population of around 5.8 million.  Danish press said the row marked a major deterioration in the country's ties to America, with one newspaper headline calling relations ”ice cold” and another saying they had reached “freezing point”.  Ms Frederikse, the Danish prime minister, over the weekend had brushed off Mr Trump’s Greenland interest, saying: “Thankfully, the time where you buy and sell other countries and populations is over.” But she gave a more sober statement on Wednesday, telling the cameras: “It is with regret and surprise that I received the news that President Trump has cancelled his state visit.”  Ms Frederikse said that preparations for the trip had been “well under way”, but added: ”This does not change the character of our good relations.”  She was not the only one caught out. Carla Sands, the US ambassador to Denmark, had tweeted on Tuesday afternoon that “Denmark is ready” for Mr Trump, adding the words “partner, ally, friend!”  Within hours the trip had been cancelled.

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Mexico struggles: whether to talk to vigilantes or jail them

Mexico's government appears to be split about whether it should talk to armed vigilante groups, or treat them as criminals. President Andres Manuel López Obrador said Thursday he disagreed with his assistant interior secretary's decision to attend a ceremony with vigilantes, who often call themselves "self-defense" groups. The debate came to a head Wednesday when Ricardo Peralta, an assistant secretary of the interior, attended the groundbreaking of an agricultural processing plant in the vigilante-dominated community of La Huacana in the western state of Michoacan.

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This Crock-Pot Spaghetti Is the Fuss-Free Pasta You Need Tonight

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A woman never returned to work after her lunch break. Police say a coworker killed her

Kenneth C. Saal, 30, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Carolyn Byington, who never returned to work from a lunch break.

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Iran displays domestically built mobile missile defense system

Iran displayed what it described as a domestically built long-range, surface-to-air missile air defense system on Thursday, at a time of rising tension with the United States. Iran shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone in the Gulf with a surface-to-air missile in June. It says the drone was over its territory, but the United States says it was in international airspace.

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Critics of Missouri abortion law sue over referendum failure

Abortion-rights advocates on Thursday sued Missouri's top election official, alleging his actions and state laws denied them the right to put one of the nation's most restrictive abortion laws to a public vote. No Bans on Choice Committee and the American Civil Liberties Union sought to put the law on the 2020 ballot in hopes that voters would overturn it. Attorneys for those who sued put the blame on Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft.

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