Former Angels Employee Charged in Pitcher’s Overdose Death

By BY CHRISTINA MORALES from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2DpPRKW

Know Your Pandemic Schooling Options

By BY KATHERINE CUSUMANO from NYT At Home https://ift.tt/3fHxePs

New York Is Positioned to Reopen Schools Safely, Health Experts Say

By BY RONI CARYN RABIN AND APOORVA MANDAVILLI from NYT Health https://ift.tt/2DLZcME

How to Volunteer or Donate to Help Others This School Year

By BY AMELIA NIERENBERG AND ALEXANDRA E. PETRI from NYT At Home https://ift.tt/2PBBbLc

What It’s Like to Be a Virtual N.B.A. Fan

By BY SCOTT CACCIOLA from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/33DDoxS

Bolivia está bloqueada, los manifestantes obstruyen el acceso a las ciudades

By BY MARÍA SILVIA TRIGO AND ANATOLY KURMANAEV from NYT en Español https://ift.tt/2XBDIcn

‘If We Get It, We Chose to Be Here’: Despite Virus, Thousands Converge on Sturgis for Huge Rally

By BY MARK WALKER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3a5Fyrb

Beirut on the Potomac

By BY ROGER COHEN from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/3fBGnsL

Trump claims Biden will 'hurt God. He's against God.'

At a speech to supporters in Cleveland on Thursday, President Trump said former Vice President Joe Biden is “against God.”

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Hong Kong: US imposes sanctions on chief executive Carrie Lam

The sanctions on Carrie Lam and others are for "undermining" the Chinese territory's autonomy.

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Mississippi: More than 100 children and teachers in quarantine due to coronavirus outbreak two weeks after schools reopened

More than 100 people in a Mississippi school district have been instructed to self-isolate, due to an outbreak of coronavirus less than two weeks after they reopened.At least 116 people in Corinth, a city in Mississippi, have been told to quarantine for two weeks, after six students and one staff member tested positive for Covid-19 over the past week.

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Old, new U.S. envoys the same - 'they bite off more than they can chew', Iran says

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Thursday that the top U.S. envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, was leaving his post and the U.S. special representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, would add Iran to his role. Hook’s surprise departure comes at a critical time when Washington has been intensely lobbying at the United Nations to extend an arms embargo on Iran and as the U.N. Security Council prepares to hold a vote on the U.S. resolution next week.

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Help Lebanon: Remove Hezbollah’s Stranglehold — and Its Dangerous Missile Stockpiles

Beirut has been ravaged by a massive explosion, likely caused by careless handling of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse at its port. As the city is still picking through the debris and thousands search for loved ones, countries such as Turkey, Iran, Qatar, France, and Israel are rushing to provide support. Yet looming over Beirut even now is the presence of the terrorist group Hezbollah with its network of 150,000 missiles, many stored in civilian areas throughout the country.While Hezbollah has not been blamed for the August 4 warehouse fire that led to the massive explosion, it is alleged to have imported and stored similar stockpiles of dangerous munitions and chemicals, such as ammonium nitrate, used in explosives. Hezbollah also helped create the corrupt and negligent political system whose lack of accountability enabled the careless storage of these deadly chemicals for years. For instance, a new report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies asserts that Hezbollah siphons off billions from around the world into a kind of black market. Money is laundered through Lebanon, allowing Hezbollah to function as a kind of parallel state, one with its own terror army, missiles, companies, financial services, and social servicesThe recent explosion in Lebanon must invite increased scrutiny of the role Hezbollah has played in eroding state institutions and enabling the kind of shoddy negligence that led to this disaster. To shield itself, Hezbollah will scramble to respond, likely either casting blame or portraying itself as riding to the rescue. It has done this before. After launching an attack on Israel in 2006, Hezbollah used the war’s devastation to entrench and enrich itself. It did the same with the Syrian civil war in 2011, using the war next door as an excuse to send fighters to Syria and essentially conduct Lebanon’s foreign policy in place of the government.The results of Hezbollah’s machinations are clear: constant tensions with Israel, and the lurching of once lush and prosperous Beirut from one failure to the next, from brownouts to lack of basic services for citizens. Lebanon is in the midst of a financial crisis and requires some $93 billion for a bailout. Hezbollah has suggested Lebanon turn to China for help, as part of its goal to replace U.S. influence in Lebanon with China, Iran, and other U.S. adversaries. It may try to leverage the devastation to deepen its tentacles over the country using its network of social services and volunteers.What can be done to address Lebanon’s mounting problems, now compounded by this tragic explosion, while reducing Hezbollah’s corrosive influence? First, Hezbollah needs to be isolated from the financial system and from the flow of weapons coming from Iran. In recent years, Hezbollah sought to acquire precision-guided munitions and to establish factories for them in Lebanon. It has also threatened Israeli infrastructure. In a 2016 speech, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah even threatened to target ammonium-nitrate storage in Israel to cause the kind of explosion that just levelled Beirut. This leaves no doubt that the terrorist group knows exactly the level of devastation it wanted to cause in Israel and the threat it still poses. The Alma Research Center in Israel recently revealed that Hezbollah has 28 rocket-launch sites around Beirut. The recent explosion makes it clear that Hezbollah’s use of civilian areas for weapons storage must be stopped in Lebanon.Yet many countries looking to provide support for Lebanon will likely do so without seeking to disentangle Hezbollah. Russia, Iran, and China may be amenable to working with Nasrallah while Turkey, Qatar, and France could turn a blind eye to the group’s role. Saudi Arabia, once a major backer of Lebanon and broker of the 1989 accords that ended the country’s civil war, opposes Hezbollah’s role. As do other Gulf states, such as the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. can help Lebanon, monitor reconstruction, and advise on implementing financial and port-inspection standards, sidelining Hezbollah in the process.In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, aid will be concentrated on finding missing people and avoiding an economic collapse or a health crisis amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Once this period has passed, it is essential that the dust not merely settle with Hezbollah more entrenched and powerful, its system of illicit weapons and warehouses full of munitions still dotting the civilian landscape. If Hezbollah does capitalize on this disaster, it will only accelerate Lebanon’s economic collapse, and hold the country hostage in a future war with Israel.

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Videos show Black inmate John Neville saying 'I can't breathe' before fatal injury; sheriff apologizes

A North Carolina sheriff apologized before videos were released showing John Neville telling jailers he can't breathe as he was fatally injured.

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US stops advising against global travel, but hits Mexico

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Trump’s Last Gasp Could Be a Supreme Court Justice in January

Close your eyes and picture Jan. 3, 2021: The Capitol is teeming with 35 newly sworn-in Senators, four of whom have given the Democrats a 51-50 majority with the vice president-elect’s tie-breaking vote; Republican Senate rule has ended and, with their enlarged House majority, Democrats now control both branches of government for the first time in twelve years.President-elect Biden and his team are busy crafting an ambitious legislative program, dealing with transition tasks of agency appointments and anticipated judicial nominations and planning the upcoming inauguration. Democrats are happy. Exciting opportunity is in the air. But within a few days, the Democrats’ party crashes to a halt with the news that a Supreme Court opening has suddenly materialized, and the opening comes from the progressive wing of the court. The immediate assumption is that the 51-50 Democratic majority will ensure that a new nominee will reflect the judicial profile of her predecessor. Not so fast: Between Jan. 3 and Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, outgoing Vice President Mike Pence will still cast tie-breaking votes. And worse, Donald Trump is the undisputed president until noon on the 20th, able to nominate SCOTUS and other judicial nominees, all lifetime appointments.Here’s a Preview of America’s 2020 Nightmare if Trump LosesTrump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have quietly assembled a short list of conservative SCOTUS nominees, hoping for a vacancy to arise. Should the opening develop days before the November election, or during the transition period between the election and the Inauguration, Trump and McConnell would be ready to shove through their nominee within days. McConnell’s 2016 rebuke of Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the court—“Let the people decide!”—has been retooled to “We’re still in power!”As late as Jan. 3, Trump—rejected by American voters—and McConnell, stripped of his abusive leadership powers, would likely be prepared to ram through a SCOTUS nomination that would shift the court’s ideological balance to the far right for a generation to come.Should that opening occur before Jan. 3, McConnell would certainly use Senate rules and practices to schedule an up-or-down confirmation vote with his 53-47 Republican majority.  And even after the new 50-50 Senate is sworn in on Jan. 3, McConnell could potentially use Vice President Pence to break any Democratic effort to organize and prevent a Republican SCOTUS confirmation.A Far-Fetched Scenario?As long as the Senate has existed, tradition and bipartisan collegiality have smoothed the transfer of power from one party to the other after an election. Leaders of both parties hashed out committee apportionment, budgets, and so on, during the November-December transition period. The opening day schedule, introduction of priority legislation, and speeches has long been regulated by tradition. After the 2000 election and its resulting 50-50 split, outgoing Democratic leader Tom Daschle and incoming leader Trent Lott worked to ease partisan differences and hand the leadership reins to Republicans. But next Jan. 3 may be wildly different. If the November election results in a 50-50 split in the Senate—an entirely likely scenario, with four Democratic pickups and a loss in Alabama—emotions may be raw and even vindictive. The past four years of bitter division and personal hostilities have created a toxic Senate environment. This scenario has happened before, though with no dire results. After the 2000 election, with a split Senate, Al Gore provided the tie-breaking vote that gave Democrats the majority for the 17 days before George W. Bush’s Inauguration.Potholes in the Trump/McConnell PathSenate rules experts doubt that McConnell could attempt to force through a SCOTUS nominee in 17 days or less, citing a number of Senate procedural roadblocks, such as the requirement that a nomination must “lay over” for one week, and that the nomination must be voted out of the Judiciary Committee before Senate floor consideration. “The majority may be deterred from doing what they want by the institution’s inherited rules of procedure,” notes James Wallner, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute and former executive director of the Senate Steering Committee. “A last-minute effort to confirm a Supreme Court nominee would be extraordinary.”However, any Senate rule can be overridden by a simple Senate majority vote, a procedure that McConnell has aggressively invoked for the Kavanaugh and Gorsuch nominations. And until noon on Jan. 20, Mike Pence can, as president of the Senate, break any tie vote, and give Republicans a continued majority status to conduct committee business. Senate precedence has given vice presidents a wide berth to exercise that vote.The potential for a last-minute conservative SCOTUS appointment by a defeated Trump and defanged McConnell is real and frightening. Perhaps one or two Republican Senators would resist such a frantic power grab. Yet despite a handful of senators who have exhibited a willingness to rise above party and challenge Trump, 50 surviving Republicans may be willing to shove through another conservative justice, or a handful of lower court nominees at the last minute. Certainly an embittered, angry, loser Trump would love nothing more than to use his last days in the White House to deal Democrats a vicious blow.The only sure prevention of this nightmare rests in a Democratic wave election on Nov. 3 that ejects not only Trump and Pence from the White House, but at least five Republican incumbents as well.And for good measure, the surprise defeat of the Trump Senate enablers who have gotten us in this mess to start with.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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ICE detained hundreds of Mississippi chicken plant workers. Now managers are charged

The indictments mark the first criminal action prosecutors have taken against company managers after ICE took close to 700 workers into custody last year during a massive raid on food processing plants.

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Virginia mayor urged to resign after saying Biden picked ‘Aunt Jemima’ as his running mate

A Virginia mayor has been urged to resign after he allegedly wrote that “Joe Biden has just announced Aunt Jemima as his VP pick,” on his Facebook page.Barry Presgraves, the mayor of Luray, Virginia, posted the comment on his Facebook page over the weekend, but swiftly deleted it after backlash from residents and local officials.

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Captain astonished that his ship delivered Beirut explosive

When Boris Prokoshev, a former sea captain spending his retirement years in a Russian village, woke up and found an email saying a ship he once commanded had carried the ammonium nitrate that blew up swathes of Beirut, he was astonished. “I didn't understand anything,” he told The Associated Press on Thursday from Verkhnee Buu, 1300 kilometers (800 miles) south of Moscow. The email was from a journalist, he said, and titled with the name of the MV Rhosus, which he had captained on a voyage that he was never paid for.

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A top Saudi intelligence official who fled to Canada in 2017 is suing Mohammed bin Salman, saying the crown prince sent an elite squad to kill him 2 weeks after Khashoggi's death

Saad al-Jabri, who spent 40 years working in Saudi intelligence, claims Crown Prince Mohammed wants him dead because he knows too much.

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Could a World War II Shipwreck Cause the Next Beirut-Like Explosion?

The SS Richard Montgomery is basically a bomb waiting to go off.

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Louisville caravan calls on Mitch McConnell to extend $600 supplement to jobless benefits

A caravan of workers took to Louisville's streets Thursday to call on Sen. Mitch McConnell to extend a federal supplement to unemployment benefits.

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Biden draws distinction between diversity within Black and Latino communities

In an interview with representatives from the national associations of Black and Hispanic journalists while talking about extending temporary protected status to Cubans in Florida communities who are being deported, former Vice President Joe Biden referenced what he said is a distinction between diversity within Black and Latino communities. Biden told NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro that “unlike the African-American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things. You go to Florida, and you find a very different attitude about immigration in certain places than you do when you’re in Arizona.”

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