A nightmare comes true for 12 Hong Kongers arrested at sea, now in Chinese detention

What sparked Hong Kong's mass protests last year — fear of extradition to mainland China — has become a dark reality for 12 Hong Kong families.

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Smoke from California's wildfires likely killed more than 1,200 people – nearly 50 times the number who perished in the flames

Researchers at Stanford University estimate that wildfire smoke killed at least 1,200 people over age 65 in California – and likely more.

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Utah family sues police, claiming 'gratuitous violence'

The family of a Utah man who was shot at nearly 30 times and killed as he ran from police filed a lawsuit Friday against Salt Lake City and its police department. The family of Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal family allege the officers engaged in “gratuitous violence” by shooting at him between 27 and 29 times after he was already on the ground and incapacitated. “Despite the family’s attempts to negotiate, it is apparent that the SLCPD and the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Office (are) not interested in real reform,” the family’s attorneys wrote in a statement.

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Trump unveils his ‘America First’ health care plan

Insight from National Taxpayers Union Senior Fellow Mattie Duppler.

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Climate Point: California moves to ban gas-powered cars. And, vote for fat bears

And another thing: The clock is ticking, literally.

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U.S.-Trained Forces Are Raping Women in Cameroon—and Rebels Are Beheading Them

IKOM, Nigeria—Lucy was contemplating closing early for the day when soldiers—believed to be from the Cameroon government’s notorious Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR)—stormed her shop in the northwestern Cameroon town of Bamenda at the end of August, dragged her outside, asked her to take off the shirt she was wearing, and forced her to sit on the bare ground for hours.“When I asked them what I had done wrong, one of them gave me a terrible slap and began to kick me all over my body,” Lucy, who sells foodstuffs close to a market in Bamenda, told The Daily Beast via telephone. “I thought the soldiers were going to kill me.”On the same day Lucy was brutalized by government forces in Bamenda, about 80 other women—mostly traders at the local food market—were detained at a police station for three days, many of them beaten and wounded by soldiers who were searching for English-speaking separatists following the killing of a police officer days before.“The soldiers entered the food market unannounced and began to forcefully remove everybody to the mobile police station,” said Lucy, who wanted to be identified by just her first name. “They looted and destroyed shops and ordered every woman to sit on the ground. The weather was so hot and some women collapsed as a result of the heat.”Slaughtered Because They Spoke EnglishScores of women have been assaulted and abused by both Cameroonian government forces and English-speaking separatists in the northwest and southwest Anglophone parts of Cameroon since violence erupted in the two regions, along the long Nigerian border, more than three years ago.Reports of sexual violence against women have grown in recent months, mostly perpetrated by BIR soldiers who’ve received lots of financial support from the United States in recent years. Last year, Human Rights Watch documented how two BIR soldiers raped a 22-year-old mother in the northwest and how a 23-year-old woman and a 17-year-old girl in the same home were raped in front of two children by three BIR soldiers who accused them of hiding separatists. Women have also been assaulted while fleeing from their communities.“Soldiers stopped us as we were heading to the [Nigerian] border and forced us to take off our clothes,” a 17-year-girl, who fled the Cameroonian town of Akwaya with her 25-year-old sister to the Ogoja refugee settlement in Nigeria, told The Daily Beast. “They began to touch our private parts and were about to rape us when they heard gunshots, which made them leave us and run away.”In recent years, the Cameroonian military—including the BIR—has relied heavily on the U.S. for funding. Since 2014, America has given more than $220 million to Cameroon in security assistance—including $700,000 spent so far this year on assisting the country’s military and police.Created in 2001 by the Cameroonian government to tackle armed bandits on its northern border with Chad and Nigeria and its eastern border with the Central African Republic, the BIR soon began to stray from its original mission—allegedly committing a number of human-rights atrocities including extrajudicial killing of civilians suspected to work for Boko Haram militants in northern Cameroon.The elite army unit, which is better trained and equipped than the regular Cameroonian army, is overseen by retired Israeli officers who report directly to President Paul Biya. These officers were recently accused of living extravagantly. One of them was reported to have bought properties worth about $32 million in New York and Los Angeles, and spent his holidays in luxury resorts in the Bahamas, costing $20,000 per night.But the rapid reaction force isn’t the only group that has targeted women and girls in western Cameroon. Armed separatists have assaulted and murdered women amid intensifying violence and growing calls for secession of the northwest and southwest regions.In an astonishing video widely shared on social media last month, three suspected separatist fighters in the southwestern town of Muyuka were seen beating and dragging a woman whom the government later identified as Confort Tumassang, a 35-year-old mother of four. Her hands were tied behind her back and Tumassang, who was accused of collaborating with the military, could be heard in the clip begging for mercy. She was then beheaded and her body abandoned in the street. The incident, which occurred on Aug. 11, came during the same period that reports of sexual assault perpetrated by separatists on women in Anglophone communities began to grow.“My 17-year-old cousin was raped by two rebels on her way to the market." Helen, a 25-year-old hairdresser in Muyuka, told The Daily Beast via telephone. “They beat her up and threatened to kill her before eventually raping her.”The U.S.-Backed Military Slaughters Women and Children in CameroonRape has become one of the most common forms of violence against women in the conflict in the western Cameroon. A study last year by the Rural Women Center for Education and Development, a Cameroonian non-profit group, revealed that at least 300 school-age girls from the northwest region became pregnant after being raped by suspected separatist fighters or government soldiers, and that many victims terminated their pregnancies with unsafe or crude abortions. Following the revelation, Cameroon government officials noted that the actual number could be much higher, as many girls involved in the practice do so in hiding.“It is obviously clear that rape has become a weapon of war in the conflict in western Cameroon,” Eno Edet, a human rights lawyer and advocate in Cross River State—which is hosting the vast majority of Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria—told The Daily Beast. “There are dozens of Cameroonian girls in refugee settlements here in Cross River with stories of sexual assault perpetrated by separatists or government forces back in their country.”Cameroon’s western regions descended into conflict in 2016 when the government repressed peaceful protests by English speakers against perceived marginalization. It turned into a full war when separatists declared western Cameroon an independent nation in October 2017. Over 3,000 civilian deaths have been recorded, along with dozens of soldiers killed by separatists. More than 700,000 Anglophone Cameroonians have been displaced during the crisis, and at least 52,000 people are currently taking refuge in Nigeria.As The Daily Beast previously reported, Anglophones make up about 20 percent of Cameroon’s population of 26 million. In February 1961, the United Nations organized a referendum in which English-speaking Cameroonians, then under British rule, voted to rejoin Francophone Cameroon. Both merged on Oct. 1, 1961, and inherited a constitution which recognized the country as a federation of two states with “the same status.” But not long after the reunification, things began to change. Then-President Ahmadou Ahidjo, a Francophone, replaced the two federal states with six regions. He appointed federal inspectors of each region and gave them more power than locally elected politicians. Ahidjo followed up by discarding the currency used by the Anglophones. He refused to recognize Cameroon’s membership of the Commonwealth, and he abolished federalism altogether through a national referendum.Incumbent President Paul Biya, also a Francophone, succeeded Ahidjo in November 1982 and began to introduce policies similar to that of his predecessor. In 1983, he split the Anglophone region into the Northwest and Southwest provinces. A year later he changed the country’s official name to the Republic of Cameroon, as it was known as when it was a Francophone territory, and removed the second star from the flag that had stood as a representation of the Anglophone region.Many prominent figures in Cameroon’s western region from time to time condemned the policies of the Biya administration as they affect the western region, but when the government went ahead to appoint French-speaking magistrates in Anglophone courts, many believed he had gone too far.Unfortunately, the conflict that followed has crippled social amenities and left much of the Anglophone region in ruins. But it is the frequent targeting of women and girls by major players in the war that leaves many in English-speaking communities worried.“We are living in fear because women are becoming victims of rape every day,” said Helen, the hairdresser in Muyuka. “The other day, it was my cousin [who was raped]. Tomorrow, it could be another innocent woman. No woman is safe here.”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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Coronavirus

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Here’s What 4 of Our Reporters Are Watching as Voting Begins to Unfold

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Portland Prepares for Violent Showdowns, Proud Boys and Tear Gas

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A new Fox News poll shows Biden leading Trump in Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

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California County Enlists Social Media to Thwart a Misleading Election Photo

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Temp worker tossed Pennsylvania ballots Trump complained about, official says

The Justice Department announced an inquiry into the discarded ballots on Thursday, which was promoted by the White House and the president's re-election campaign.

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Feds air FBI agent’s gripes about Flynn probe

The official public release of such candid assessments from inside a federal investigative team is extraordinarily rare.

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Pakistan PM condemns 'Islamophobic' Charlie Hebdo cartoons

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday condemned the fresh publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed by a French satirical weekly, urging UN efforts against what he called rising Islamophobia.

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Former congressman Ron Paul hospitalized, says he's OK

Former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul posted a picture of himself in a hospital Friday but said he was OK after video circulated online of him struggling to speak during an interview. The 85-year-old former Texas congressman, who ran for president three times, posted a picture on Facebook showing him smiling in a hospital gown and giving a thumbs-up. The post came after a video took off on social media showing Paul having trouble speaking during an appearance on his livestreamed show “Ron Paul Liberty Report.”

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CNN’s Brianna Keilar Fires Back at Tucker Carlson and Kayleigh McEnany

CNN’s Brianna Keilar spent more than 10 minutes of her broadcast on Friday dismantling the smears she has received from both Fox News and the Trump White House this week.“Yesterday, White House Press Secretary implied that I am responsible for two police officers being shot in Louisville,” the anchor began. “She is lying to Americans again, and I’ll address that in a moment. But first, I’m not the Brianna that the White House should be focused on right now. Breonna Taylor is.”After recapping for viewers the devastating details of that police shooting, which left the 26-year-old EMT from Kentucky dead without any of the three officers being held responsible, Keilar said, “The White House wants us talking about racism and the justice system because they use it as a springboard to scare Americans about looting, aided by Fox News running episodes of violence on an incessant loop, that their hearts and minds won’t be able to look past the fear to see injustice.”> “I’m not the Brianna that the White House should be focused on right now. Breonna Taylor is.” > @brikeilarCNN responds to Press Sec. Kayleigh McEnany’s remarks about her. pic.twitter.com/dR40GxR4u7> > — CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) September 25, 2020This brought her back to the lies that McEnany told about her from the White House press room on Thursday. The press secretary attacked Keilar for calling into question the Kentucky attorney general’s assertion that “mob justice is not justice.” But as the CNN anchor explained, she was highlighting in her comments his “purposeful use of that Trump talking point” equating Joe Biden supporters with the so-called “mob” of protesters.“That's an appalling statement from Brianna Keilar at CNN,” McEnany said. “Hours later, after this comment was made on CNN, two police officers were shot. This is not justice.”Kayleigh McEnany Grilled on Trump’s Sudden Embrace of Mail-In VotingKeilar proceeded to connect the dots between Tucker Carlson, who she said first took her words “out of context” on his Fox News show earlier in the week, and McEnany who brought them into her official White House press conference.“Tucker Carlson, whose own company argues that his show is so full of it that viewers shouldn’t be expected to believe what he tells them,” Keilar said, referring to the recent defamation lawsuit that Fox News won by arguing that “given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrives with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.”“Any reasonable viewer,” she repeated. “But not Kayleigh McEnany. The press secretary left no doubt that Fox News primetime shows are just a propaganda arm for this administration.”Tucker Carlson Argues That Breonna Taylor and George Floyd Had It ComingResponding directly to McEnany’s claims, Keilar said, “At no time did I suggest that violence is justice, and I can’t believe I even have to explain that. But the alternative is letting someone like Kayleigh McEnany misquote and manipulate what you say. McEnany, who repeatedly lies to the American people.”After playing a series of clips in which the press secretary delivered obvious lies about President Donald Trump and the coronavirus to reporters and the public, Keilar cut to video footage of the president “repeatedly encouraging violence” against journalists and others.“That is not real leadership,” she said. “Real leadership is calm. Real leadership is steady in moments of crisis. It is not hysterical. It is not exploitive. It is not dishonest.”CNN’s Brianna Keilar Comes at Trump Campaign’s Mercedes Schlapp for Falsely Smearing Her Military HusbandRead 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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Claremont killings: Australian man guilty of two 1990s murders

Bradley Robert Edwards is convicted of murdering two women in the 1990s, but acquitted of killing a third.

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Mary Trump sues family for fraud: "Fraud was not just the family business — it was a way of life"

Trump claims that she was deluded into forfeiting her inheritance following the death of her grandfather and father

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Seoul: North Korea kills S. Korean official, burns his body

South Korea said Thursday that North Korean troops fatally shot a South Korean government official who may have attempted to defect and set his body on fire after finding him on a floating object near the countries' disputed sea boundary. According to Seoul, the man disappeared from a government ship that was checking on possible unauthorized fishing in an area south of the boundary on Monday, a day before he was found in North Korean waters. Later in the day, a North Korean navy boat came and opened fire at him, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said.

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FBI chief says U.S. 'Antifa' demonstrators are targets of multiple probes

At a hearing of the Republican-led Senate Homeland Security committee, Christopher Wray said that the Bureau had seen "organized tactical activity at both the local and regional level." Wray added that the bureau is conducting multiple investigations "into some anarchist violent extremists, some of whom operate through these nodes." Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is an amorphous movement "who believe in active, aggressive opposition to far right-wing movements," according https://ift.tt/2XMEkvg to the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks extremists.

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Shocking Video Shows Seattle Cop Rolling Bike Over Fallen Breonna Taylor Protester’s Head and Neck

The Seattle Police Department is investigating after a video showed one of its cops rolling a bike over the head and neck of a fallen protester at Wednesday night’s Breonna Taylor demonstrations.Protests erupted in the city in response to officers in Louisville, Kentucky not being charged for fatally shooting the 26-year-old Black woman. The SPD confirmed in a statement that 13 people were arrested at the Seattle demonstrations and complained that multiple officers had been injured, including one who was struck in the head with a baseball bat.However, the shocking video, which appears to show an SPD officer rolling his bicycle over the head of an already-injured man, has been widely condemned on social media. The anger led the department to comment, “The Seattle Police Department is aware of a video circulating on the internet that apparently shows an SPD bike officer’s bike rolling over the head of an individual laying in the street. This matter will be referred to the Office of Police Accountability for further investigation.”> Police bicycle pushed over man’s neck as he lies on the ground at Breonna Taylor protest in Seattle. https://t.co/zzsFffiTBp pic.twitter.com/SGTGjXaTiG> > — ABC News (@ABC) September 24, 2020The clip originated from a Facebook Live broadcast from C.J. Halliburton, who describes himself as an independent journalist; he recorded the unrest in Seattle throughout the night.The key part of the video shows a line of cops advancing on protesters. One, who is not cycling but pushing his bike by its handlebars, appears to slowly walk toward the man who is flat on the ground. The cop rolls the bicycle over the man’s head, with the back wheel appearing to go over his neck.The same officer then appears to bash a second protester with his bike. Two other officers then kneel down next to the fallen man before the scene becomes obscured by the line of advancing cops.A second clip posted on Facebook by Joey Weiser shows the same scene from a different angle, with Weiser shouting, “This person is on the ground—he just ran over his head! He just ran over his head! Oh my God!”The SPD statement didn’t identify the officer or the fallen man or make any statement about his condition after the incident.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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Millions without unemployment benefits amid economic fallout

Over 11 million Americans have yet to receive any unemployment benefits after losing their job from the coronavirus pandemic. Mark Strassmann reports.

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Trump says he'll accept a 2020 decision from the Supreme Court — after getting his nominee on the bench

President Trump will accept the results of the 2020 election, but only under select conditions.In a press conference Wednesday, Trump raised concerns from both sides of the aisle as he refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election this fall. Trump suggested, without evidence, that ballot fraud would lead him to lose the election, and that it would likely be decided in the Supreme Court.So in a Thursday appearance on Brian Kilmeade's Fox News Radio, the host asked Trump if he would accept a Joe Biden victory if it came from the Supreme Court. "That I would agree with," Trump responded. "But I think we have a long way before we get there. These ballots are a horror show."But it's not as if Trump has no influence on the court he's relying on to make a 2020 decision. The Supreme Court already has a conservative majority, with two of Trump's own nominees already on the bench. And after Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death last week, Trump ominously said Wednesday it was important to get a new nominee on the bench before Election Day. "I think this [the election] will end up in the Supreme Court, and I think it's very important that we have nine justices," Trump said, alleging Democrats are running a "scam" that will end up "before the United States Supreme Court."More stories from theweek.com America needs to hear the bad news first A mild defense of Republican hypocrisy on the Supreme Court Trump is the only one being honest about the Supreme Court fight

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