Bipartisan House Bill Aims to Fix Boeing 737 Max Safety Lapses

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Coronvirus

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With No Last-Set Tiebreaker, French Open Match Lasts More Than Six Hours

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The Supreme Court Ad Wars Begin

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Trump denounces discussion of Supreme Court nominee’s beliefs as anti-Catholic, even as he attacks Biden’s faith.

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Meet a Secret Trump Voter

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Trump without providing evidence says reports he paid little tax and has dire finances are ‘totally fake’

President alleged to have lost millions over two decades as TV star

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Positive COVID-19 test rates top 25% in some U.S. Midwest states

The positivity rate has risen to 26% in South Dakota, up from 17% the previous week, according to the analysis using testing data from The COVID Tracking Project. The World Health Organization considers rates above 5% concerning because it suggests there are more cases in the community that have not yet been uncovered. Several states such as New York, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine have positive test rates of less than 1%.

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Turkey Sends ISIS Warlord to Azerbaijan to Face-Off Against Putin’s Armenian Allies

ISTANBUL, Turkey—On Sunday afternoon, a video depicting a large convoy of Islamist Syrian rebel fighters yelling enthusiastically as they drove off to war circulated widely on Arabic social media. Fighters in the packed trucks, driving quickly past the group of children filming with their phones, could be heard yelling “Allahu Akbar!” and, “our leader, till’ the end of time, is our master, Muhammad!”However what shocked those watching the video weren’t the shouts of the Syrian fighters but rather those of the children filming, who yelled back at the soldiers in a language unfamiliar to most Syrians following their country’s nine-year war. “That’s not Kurdish, right?” said one user in an online group where the video emerged. “If they were Kurds you think they’d be cheering them on?” responded another with a laugh out loud emoji.After several hours rumors swirled that the video was shot in Azerbaijan, a small Turkic speaking nation nudged between Iran and Russia and that the Syrian rebel fighters had been sent there to prop up the Azeri government in its a war against it’s neighbor Armenia that had begun that day. According to high-ranking Syrian rebel sources that spoke to The Daily Beast, these rumors are true. The fighters that appeared in the circulated video were part of a group of 1,000 Syrian rebel soldiers sent in two batches from Turkey on 22 and 24 September 2020.“500 Hamza Brigade fighters were flown last Tuesday from southern Turkey to the Azeri airbase at Sumqayit [30 kilometers north of the Azeri capital of Baku]”, according to a source within the Syrian National Army (SNA) rebel outfit who requested anonymity. “Two days later, on Thursday, another 500 fighters from the Sultan Murad brigades rebel faction were similarly flown out to Azerbaijan”.These claims were echoed by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syrian opposition body that monitors human rights violations in the country whose sources suggested more batches of Syrian rebel fighters were preparing to be deployed to Azerbaijan.The Hamza and Sultan Murad brigades are known within Syrian rebel circles as factions that enjoy especially close relations with Turkey, the last remaining patron of the Syrian opposition. Sayf Balud, commander of the Hamza brigades, however, is also known for his checkered past, in particular, as a former commander within the radical jihadist group ISIS.An ethnic Syrian Turkman from the town of Biza’a in Aleppo city’s northern countryside, Balud originally joined the Abu Bakr Sadiq brigades, a moderate rebel faction near his hometown that received widespread support from Gulf states in the early years of the conflict. However hailing from a small, relatively unknown family, Balud failed to climb up the ranks of Syria’s rebel movement as quickly as he would have liked and as others from more prominent backgrounds regularly did. By early 2013, Balud joined ISIS, whose ranks were mostly staffed by foreigners and cared less about the social status of their Syrian recruits.In July 2013, Balud appeared in an ISIS propaganda video shot in the border town of Tal Abyad after the group successfully captured the city from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). In the video, Sayf appears next to an Egyptian foreign fighter addressing a room full of two dozen captured YPG soldiers, who were assembled before an ISIS camera crew to officially repent for having joined an armed faction that ISIS’ leadership described as being “at war with God”.Over the next several years, Balud’s star continued to rise, as the commander attained a level of status within ISIS that would have been unattainable within other rebel groups. Despite the large-scale defeat of ISIS across northern Syria at the hands of the YPG in 2016 and 2017, the cunning commander was able to leverage his history of fighting against Kurds to re-invent himself as a valuable client for another foreign patron: Turkey.By January 2018, when Turkish backed rebel forces launched “Operation Olive Branch” to take over the Kurdish canton of Afrin located in Syria’s uppermost northwest corner, Balud regularly appeared in the group’s propaganda videos as the official commander of the newly formed Hamza brigades. His status as an ethnic Turkman, a small minority within Syria whose likeness to their Turkish kinsmen across the border has pushed Ankara to grant many coveted privileges such as Turkish citizenship and sensitive leadership positions, further endeared Balud to his new patrons.According to SNA sources, Syrian rebel units now being sent to Azerbaijan by Turkey are almost exclusively led ethnic Syrian Turkmen. “Sayf Balud is a Turkman. The Sultan Murad brigade’s commander, Fahim Aissa, is a Syrian Turkman, like Balud. Turkey only trusts factions led by Syrian Turkman to carry out these missions. These are sensitive for Turkey politically and they don’t trust Syrian Arabs to lead them”.Turkey’s intervention in Azerbaijan is indeed sensitive. After a four-year lull in fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, fighting between both countries erupted on Sunday leading to the death of two-dozen fighters from both sides.Though internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, in 1991 Armenian factions within the Nagorno-Karabakh region declared themselves independent. Three years of war over the disputed territory ended in 1994 with a Russian brokered ceasefire. The newly declared Nagorno-Karabakh republic was shortly after occupied by Armenia which has maintained de-facto control of the area since. With the exception of four days of fighting in April 2016, Sunday’s clashes were the first major instance of renewed combat between both countries over the status of the area. Both sides accuse the other of having initiated fighting on Sunday that sparked clashes that led to the death of dozens of soldiers.As the Daily Beast went to press clashes continued between both sides with dozens more casualties reported. Fighting alongside the Azeri regular forces were 1,000 Syrian rebel fighters, among them former jihadists led by ex-ISIS commander Sayf Balud. All About the OilTurkey's move to send Syrian rebels to face-off against Armenia, a longtime rival of Turkey, is just the latest in a long string of neo-Ottoman foreign adventures undertaken by President Erdoğan over the last 6 months. Ankara has deployed both its armed forces and Syrian proxies to crack down on Kurdish PKK and YPG forces in northern Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan throughout 2020.Turkey has also intervened in western Libya and waters throughout the eastern Mediterranean where its navy has threatened NATO allies France and Greece in an attempt to strongarm both countries and lay claim to gas reserves located within Greece's maritime borders.In Azerbaijan, Turkey is looking to demonstrate loyalty and prop up an oil-rich regime with whom it has maintained close military ties since the 1994 ceasefire. Since 2005, they have launched numerous lucrative oil and gas initiatives including a pipeline that exports 1.2 million barrels of Azeri oil per day to the European Union (EU), earning Turkey upwards of $200m in annual transit fees. In 2006, this cooperation expanded following the announcement of the launch of the South Caucuses gas pipeline that annually exports 8.8 billion cubic meters of much needed Azeri gas to the Turkish market, a net importer of energy.In 2011, Turkey began work to construct a new expanded network known collectively as the Trans Anatolian Pipeline which is expected to export 31 billion cubic meters of Azeri gas to the EU by 2026, with further expansion to come. Turkish shareholders, who own a 30% stake in the project, stand to make huge profits.Turkey’s push to transform Azerbaijan into a lucrative oil and gas export hub is also motivated by Ankara’s desire to come out from under Russia’s shadow. Turkey is dependent on Russia for 40% of its fossil fuels, a reliance that has forced Ankara to treat Russia as a friendly nation despite the fact that the two countries share almost no common interests.The “Southern Gas Corridor,” a term used to refer to the various pipelines emerging out of Azerbaijan, has also been heavily cheered on by the EU, which also wants to break its dependence on Russian gas. It should come as no surprise, perhaps, that Russia is therefore on the other side in the ongoing dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.Nagorno-Karabakh is now the third theater where Russia and Turkey find themselves supporting opposite sides of an active Middle East conflict zone. In Syria, Russian support for dictator Bashar al-Assad and Turkey’s support for the country’s rebels such as Sayf Bulad and others led to direct conflict between both countries’ armies earlier this year that resulted in the death of dozens of Turkish soldiers. In Libya, the situation is reversed, with Turkey supporting Libya’s government and Russia supporting Khalifa Haftar, a renegade general and rebel leader who has sought to seize control of Libya’s lucrative oil sector and capture the capital of Tripoli.In both conflicts, Sayf Bulad and the Hamza brigades have proven extremely useful to Turkey. Thousands of the group’s fighters, including Sayf Bulad himself, were deployed to Libya last summer and helped repel a major assault launched by Russian-backed Khalifa Haftar and take back significant territory captured by the general in previous years. The Turkish backed authority in Tripoli is now safely guarded against external threats, while Turkish companies are set to gain lucrative contracts in Libya’s oil and gas and reconstruction sectors.Within this context of great power struggles, Syria's rebels, once idealistic and seeking to liberate their country from dictator Bashar al-Assad, have found themselves reduced to pawns compelled to serve as mercenaries and shock troops used by Turkey to advance its foreign policy in a world where Ankara finds itself increasingly isolated. In doing so, they find themselves led by and mixed in with fighters from the most vicious jihadist group the world has ever seen.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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Residents of a Texas city told not to drink tap water after a brain-eating microbe was found in the water supply

Water tests were conducted in Texas communities after a 6-year-old boy died from a rare brain illness caused by a microbe found in water.

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'An illegitimate sham': Democrats refuse to meet with Amy Coney Barrett before grilling her at hearings

‘I will take the opportunity to question her when she is under oath,’ Senator Mazie Hirono says, setting up October showdown with Trump Supreme Court nominee

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Veteran facing border wall scam charges with Steve Bannon: ‘Not a penny’ was taken

When ‘Build the Wall’ amputee veteran Brian Kolfage was arrested, officers forbade use of prosthetic legs, now he plans to sue

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Pelosi warns House could be forced to decide presidential election

In a letter to her Democratic colleagues, Pelosi underscored the need for Democrats to expand their majority in the House and win control of state House delegations.

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Pakistan's top court accepts appeal by Daniel Pearl's family

Pakistan's Supreme Court on Monday accepted an appeal by the family of slain American journalist Daniel Pearl seeking to keep a British-born Pakistani man on death row over the beheading of the Wall Street Journal reporter. The court delayed until next week hearing the appeal over the lower-court acquittal of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who had been on death row since his conviction in 2002 over Pearl's killing. The Supreme Court ordered Sheikh to remain in custody but Faisal Siddiqi, the lawyer for Pearl's family, told The Associated Press on Monday the court will decide next week whether Sheikh will remain imprisoned during the course of the appeal, which could be years.

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'Utter devastation': Three dead as multiple wildfires in California explode in size

"This was pretty devastating," one official said. "Just literally hundreds and hundreds of homes devastated with nothing standing."

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Donald Trump paid just $750 federal income tax in 2016, New York Times reports

Donald Trump paid just $750 (£587) in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he won the US presidency, according to a bombshell investigation by The New York Times. The US president paid the same amount again in 2017, his first year in the White House, according to the paper, which obtained details of his tax return data. The paper also claimed that Mr Trump paid zero federal income taxes in 11 of the 18 years it was able to scrutinise, partly because of losses made in his businesses. The report comes after years of Mr Trump defying recent political precedent by refusing to publish his tax returns, citing an on-going audit to justify keeping them secret. It dropped less than two days before Mr Trump faces Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, at the much-anticipated first head-to-head debate of the election campaign.

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Massacre in Mexican bar leaves 11 people dead

A massacre in a Mexican bar left 11 people dead on Sunday (September 27).

The attorney general's office in the central state of Guanajuato said the bodies of seven men and four women were found at the scene in the city of Jaral del Progreso in the early hours.

Authorities added that another woman was also found with gunshot injuries.

It comes as the country grapples with a record homicide rate - despite the government's promises to tackle gang violence.

Guanajuato, a major car-making hub, has become a recurring scene of criminal violence in Mexico, ravaged by a turf war between the local Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

In July, gunmen killed 24 people at a drug rehabilitation center in Guanajuato.

It was one of the worst mass slayings since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office - pledging to reduce record levels of violence.

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Alabama town removes statue of Confederate soldier in the middle of the night

The town will pay a $25,000 fine for removing the 115-year-old monument

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Tow company sold vehicles of Texas military members while they were on duty, feds say

One of the service members was at basic training when his car was towed, officials say.

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U.S. commerce chief sets October 5 target date to end census operations

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has set Oct. 5 as a target date to end data collection operations for the 2020 U.S. census, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Monday, weeks before the scheduled completion date of Oct. 31. President Donald Trump's administration, which said in August that it planned to shorten the time line by a month, was sued by municipalities and civil rights groups, which argued the "rushed" schedule would lead to inaccurate census results and "a massive undercount of the country's communities of color." "The Secretary of Commerce has announced a target date of October 5, 2020 to conclude 2020 Census self-response and field data collection operations," the Census Bureau wrote on Twitter on Monday.

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New aftermath footage of police raid that killed Breonna Taylor shows Louisville officers violating investigation policies

The footage shows officers involved in the raid on Taylor's apartment walking throughout the scene unescorted, a violation of their police department rules.

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Pelosi warns Democrats the election may be decided by the House — where the GOP holds an edge

If the Electoral College is tied, each state delegation gets a single vote. Republicans currently control 26

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Biden's plan for the first presidential debate against Trump

President and former VP go head-to-head on Tuesday night

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