U.S. Rep. Jim Banks introduced a bill that would ban people from receiving unemployment aid if convicted of a federal offense related to protests.
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A 22-year-old Russian opposition activist has been hospitalised after what supporters said was a vicious attack by two men outside his house in Moscow. Yegor Zhukov, who came to prominence last year when he was arrested and tried over opposition protests, posted pictures of his bruised and bloody face to social media following the attack. He was taken to hospital for an MRI scan which showed he had “fortunately managed to avoid serious injuries or internal bleeding,” a spokesman said. The activist “remained calm and even joked about what happened,” his team said in a social media post, adding that he was allowed home following tests.
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In an interview with the Financial Times published Sunday, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said that he is willing to issue an emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine prior to the conclusion of human trials.Hahn said this could be done because "the benefit outweighs the risk in a public health emergency," and claimed he would not give in to President Trump or other politicians who have asserted that there will be a vaccine available before the end of the year. "This is going to be a science, medicine, data decision," Hahn told the Financial Times. "This is not going to be a political decision."Public health experts quickly pushed back on the idea of fast-tracking a vaccine out of the normal testing guidelines. Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, tweeted that it would be unethical to administer the vaccine before it is proven safe and effective. "We absolutely cannot tolerate or accept an emergency authorization for any COVID-19 vaccine without reliable safety and efficacy data from Phase 3 clinical trials," Rasmussen said, adding that this would put "huge numbers of people at risk for massive potential harm" and deal "a catastrophic blow to public confidence in both vaccines and the regulatory mechanisms in place."More stories from theweek.com Data firm predicts election 'chaos' as Trump seems to win in a landslide before losing as more votes are counted Pandemic adviser with no epidemiology background reportedly pushes White House to adopt herd immunity strategy This Massachusetts primary is everything wrong with the Democratic Party
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Giantess is one of the biggest geysers in the national park, and typically explodes between twice and six times a year In these troubled times there comes a point where we all need to let off steam.For this huge geyser in Yellowstone park, the moment was now and the eruption was spectacular, after a six-year wait.But, for the rest of us, watching this natural phenomenon is strangely meditative and beautifully distracting from much of the bad news around, despite the violent geothermal forces propelling it.Giantess Geyser spouted for the first time in more than six years in Yellowstone National Park, which straddles part of Wyoming and a little of Montana, on 25 August, according to the US National Park Service (NPS).“She” has more typically erupted between twice and six times a year in the past, according to the NPS website, and blasts a spout up to 200ft high.“The surrounding area may shake from underground steam explosions just before the initial water and/or steam eruptions,” the NPS website adds.Giantess is one of the biggest geysers in the park, alongside phenomena such as the super-tall Steamboat geyser, the largest active geyser in the world, and the park’s most famous, Old Faithful, renowned for its punctual regularity as it soars from the ground about 20 times a day.Colorful hot spring features in the park include the blue-hued Morning Glory Pool and the psychedelic Grand Prismatic spring, as well as whiffy, sulfurous bubblers and roiling natural pots of scalding hot water fizzing out of the rocks.The features are among more than 10,000 hot springs and geysers in the park, a Unesco world heritage site.
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This is not an affirmation of celebration from a Donald Trump supporter, but a warning from filmmaker Michael Moore. The Oscar-winning documentary director posted on social media that signs are pointing to a Trump reelection come November. Moore, an avid critic of the president and advocate of Sen. Bernie Sanders, took to his Facebook page to let his followers know that history may be repeating itself as the president’s poll numbers rise in swing states that will be critical to winning the electoral college.
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The massive storm hit Louisiana early on Thursday (August 27) with 150 mile-per-hour (240 kph) winds, damaging buildings, knocking down trees and cutting power to more than 650,000 people in Louisiana and Texas. However, Laura's storm surge was much less than predicted.
The Category 4 hurricane killed at least 15 people, including some killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from the unsafe operation of generators.
Officials called Laura the most powerful hurricane to strike Louisiana, surpassing even Katrina, which was a Category 3 storm when it hit in 2005.
U.S. President Donald Trump toured the area on Saturday (August 29) and signed a disaster declaration for Louisiana on Friday (August 28).
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Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.
A pro-Trump caravan clashed with counterprotesters in Portland, Oregon. One man, purportedly affiliated with a far-right group, died. One of our writers warns that such violence speaks to something troubling about the state of democracy.
The American democratic system depends on the ability to disagree peacefully. Today, that premise is under threat, our staff writer Franklin Foer warns—and the threat is coming from the White House.
“When a society discards politics, violence assumes its place,” Frank writes, citing the deaths of two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and that of the man in Portland. Donald Trump is not alone in his turn away from politics, Frank argues: He merely accelerated what the Republican Party has been flirting with since the Newt Gingrich era.
Last year, our Ideas editor Yoni Applebaum argued that a party in dire electoral straits might turn to undemocratic tactics to maintain its power. And that could be how America ends, he warned.
What to read if … you’re still processing the death of Chadwick Boseman:
The Black Panther actor died at 43, after a four-year battle with colon cancer. Boseman’s legacy, David Sims observes, “will be the incredible body of work he created” in the seven short years following his breakout role as Jackie Robinson in 42.
“Amid a moment in which Black life feels particularly fragile, losing a Black superhero, even a fictional one, is especially destabilizing,” Clint Smith writes.
One question, answered: Contract tracing is working internationally. Why not in America?
“Contact tracers are not to blame,” Olga Khazan reports. “But they’re struggling for three main reasons.”
The first is that there are too many cases to track:
The countries where contact tracing has worked best set up their tracing systems before cases exploded, and as cases grew, they hired more tracers. The U.S. has not done this. In June, when states were in the throes of reopening, only seven states and Washington, D.C., met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation of 30 contact tracers per 100,000 residents, according to an NPR analysis.
For the other two reasons, read the rest of Olga’s report.
What to read if … you’d like to better understand the coronavirus:
Here are four key reads from our team:
What to read if … you’re missing the pageantry of back-to-school season:
Missing out on fall traditions—even the stressful ones—can make uncertain times harder to bear for kids and grown-ups alike, Jenny Anderson reports.
Every Monday, Lori Gottlieb answers questions from readers about their problems, big and small. This week she advises an anonymous reader who says his parents aren’t getting along:
Recently, my father confided in me—an act that I see as monumental—that after a particularly heated fight, he realized he was reaching a breaking point. He said he has been thinking of divorce, unless something can change. He is open to marriage counseling, but he knows that persuading my mother to attend is an uphill battle. I know that he came to me because he thinks I might be the only one in our family who can convince her.
Read the rest, and Lori’s response. Write to her anytime at dear.therapist@theatlantic.com.
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A senior French military officer has been charged with espionage for allegedly passing top secret documents to Russian intelligence, Florence Parly, the defence minister, said on Sunday. The lieutenant-colonel, who has not been named, is stationed at a NATO base in Italy. He was detained by France’s General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), the equivalent of MI5, 10 days ago. The officer was about to return to Italy after a holiday in France, Europe 1 radio reported, and is being held at La Santé prison in Paris. Ms Parly said the defence ministry had referred the case to public prosecutors. She declined to give details about the nature of the information allegedly given to Russia, saying the matter was sub judice. “We have taken all necessary measures. Now justice must be allowed to take its course while respecting the secrecy of the investigation… It is for the judicial system to decide what he is guilty of and whether he is guilty.” If convicted, the officer risks life imprisonment and a €750,000 (£669,000) fine. The case is likely to embarrass France in the eyes of its western allies if security failings that could potentially compromise NATO are revealed. It comes after two former agents of France’s external intelligence service, the DGSE, were handed prison sentences of 12 and 8 years last month for spying for China. The highly sensitive trial was held behind closed doors and little is known about the case against the agents, who had already retired when they were charged three years ago. One of them, named as Henri M, served as the DGSE’s Beijing station chief in the 1990s. He was recalled after starting an affair with the French ambassador’s Chinese interpreter. After his retirement, he returned to China in 2003 and married the former interpreter. The couple took up residence on Hainan Island, off China’s southern coast. Now 73, he was arrested in France in 2017. Around the same time the other agent, named as Pierre-Marie H, 68, was arrested at Zurich airport carrying a large amount of cash after meeting a Chinese contact on an island in the Indian Ocean. Under French law, the full names of former intelligence agents may not be made public.
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The U.S. armed forces will have no role in carrying out the election process or resolving a disputed vote, the top U.S. military officer has told Congress. The comments from Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, underscore the extraordinary political environment in America, where the president has declared without evidence that the expected surge in mail-in ballots will make the vote “inaccurate and fraudulent,” and has suggested he might not accept the election results if he loses. Milley's comments were released Friday.
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Kenosha, a city of 100,000 in Wisconsin’s southeastern corner, now confronts the question of when lethal force is justified in two different cases. One, the shooting of Jacob Blake by a police officer, I addressed yesterday. The other is the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, who is alleged to have killed two people and injured one during the civil unrest this week, and who has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide, reckless homicide, and other offenses.Rittenhouse is a 17-year-old from Antioch, Ill., about a half hour’s drive from Kenosha. Inexplicably, this underage police cadet from out of state wound up on the streets after curfew in a place where a riot was likely imminent, doing interviews with journalists and openly carrying an AR-15–style rifle.There can be no question that Rittenhouse and whatever adults were in charge of him made idiotic decisions. Minors should not stand guard at riots play-acting at being cops. But even people who knowingly put themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time are allowed to defend themselves against attack when they get there. So the biggest legal question is: Did Rittenhouse defend himself against attack with an appropriate amount of force, or were the people he shot the ones acting in self-defense by trying to disarm him?The very beginning of the situation is not on video that I am aware, but the complaint against Rittenhouse contains some key details from Richard McGinnis, a Daily Caller reporter who was interviewing Rittenhouse at the time:> McGinnis said that as they were walking south another armed male who appeared to be in his 30s joined them and said he was there to protect the defendant. McGinnis stated that before the defendant reached the parking lot and ran across it, the defendant had moved from the middle of Sheridan Road to the sidewalk and that is when McGinnis saw a male ([Joseph] Rosenbaum) initially try to engage the defendant. McGinnis stated that as the defendant was walking Rosenbaum was trying to get closer to the defendant. When Rosenbaum advanced, the defendant did a “juke” move and started running. McGinnis stated that there were other people that were moving very quickly. McGinnis stated that they were moving towards the defendant. McGinnis said that according to what he saw the defendant was trying to evade these individuals.After that, much of the situation was recorded, and the New York Times has done an excellent job of stitching the videos together. This Twitter thread from a co-author of the piece nicely explains the events and (for those willing to watch graphic footage) provides the key clips:> A teenager faces charges in shootings that left 2 people dead in Kenosha, WI. The @nytimes Visual Investigations team reviewed hours of livestreams to track 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse’s movements during and leading up to the shootings. [THREAD] https://t.co/FRCYlS5wgH> > -- Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc) August 27, 2020 The first video starts with people already chasing Rittenhouse, one of whom throws something at him. One person even fires a handgun in the air — and another, Rosenbaum, charges at Rittenhouse, who shoots him. After that, there are more shots from an unknown source, and Rittenhouse calls a friend on his phone and leaves.But again he’s pursued, with some protesters urging others to join in, and this time he falls down. Several people move in on him, and he takes shots at three, hitting two. One is holding a handgun and survives a shot to the arm; the other has a skateboard and dies. Again there are additional mysterious gunshots after the fact.Obviously, a big unanswered question right now is how this all really got started. But as we wait for that information, let’s take a gander at the Wisconsin laws at issue.There are two extremes here: justifiable use of deadly force and first-degree intentional homicide. So let’s see what the law says about those two situations, bearing in mind that other charges can apply if Rittenhouse’s behavior fell in between them. (There are plenty of options: Rittenhouse is charged with reckless homicide for the first fatal shooting, first-degree intentional homicide for the second, and attempted first-degree intentional homicide for the nonfatal one, in addition to charges for reckless endangerment and bearing a dangerous weapon as a minor.)Quite typically for a U.S. state, Wisconsin allows civilian use of deadly force when one “reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.” One major issue, then, will be whether Rittenhouse reasonably thought that the folks engaging with him meant to inflict serious injury, not just disarm him.But what if Rittenhouse provoked the confrontation to begin with? That’s bad for a claim of self-defense, but it doesn’t preclude one. Here’s another excerpt from the Wisconsin statute books:> (a) A person who engages in unlawful conduct of a type likely to provoke others to attack him or her and thereby does provoke an attack is not entitled to claim the privilege of self-defense against such attack, except when the attack which ensues is of a type causing the person engaging in the unlawful conduct to reasonably believe that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. In such a case, the person engaging in the unlawful conduct is privileged to act in self-defense, but the person is not privileged to resort to the use of force intended or likely to cause death to the person's assailant unless the person reasonably believes he or she has exhausted every other reasonable means to escape from or otherwise avoid death or great bodily harm at the hands of his or her assailant.> > (b) The privilege lost by provocation may be regained if the actor in good faith withdraws from the fight and gives adequate notice thereof to his or her assailant.> > (c) A person who provokes an attack, whether by lawful or unlawful conduct, with intent to use such an attack as an excuse to cause death or great bodily harm to his or her assailant is not entitled to claim the privilege of self-defense.So, even if Rittenhouse bears some responsibility for the initial conflict, he can still argue that he did everything he could to escape the situation and withdraw from the fight. Both shooting incidents began with him running away.Moving to the other extreme, to prove first-degree intentional homicide, prosecutors will have to show that Rittenhouse “cause[d] the death of another human being with intent to kill that person” and will have to disprove the existence of any “mitigating circumstances” the defense asserts. If the prosecution fails at the latter task, the offense is knocked down to the second degree.Mitigating circumstances include “adequate provocation,” meaning the victim did something “sufficient to cause complete lack of self-control in an ordinarily constituted person”; “unnecessary defensive force,” meaning Rittenhouse “believed he . . . was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that the force used was necessary to defend [himself],” even though the belief was unreasonable; and “prevention of felony,” meaning he believed his actions were necessary to stop the “commission of a felony,” even though the belief was unreasonable. In other words, even if Rittenhouse unreasonably thought his actions were necessary, he can get the charge downgraded, though in that case he’ll still have committed a very serious offense.Rittenhouse is already a hero to some and a supervillain to others; in that sense, he is the Bernie Goetz of 2020. The highest charge against him strikes me as a stretch, but beyond that I don’t have any bold opinions yet. The outcome for each shooting will depend on whether Rittenhouse reasonably feared for his life, which in turn might depend on broader context we lack thus far — and even if all three shootings were justified, there are still firearms and reckless-endangerment charges for him to contend with.Where the f*** were this kid’s parents?
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The highest surge hit about 15 miles east of where Laura was forecast to make landfall but it "wobbled" at the last moment. Most U.S. media played up a nine-foot surge recorded by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration observation station near Cameron, Louisiana, and the NHC was criticized for perhaps raising too much alarm.
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An Iranian has been sentenced to nine years in jail for beheading his teenaged daughter in her sleep, local media reported Friday, adding that the mother wants him executed. The so-called "honour" killing of 14-year-old Romina Ashrafi on May 21 sparked widespread outrage, with media condemning "institutionalised violence" in the Islamic republic. Media said Romina was decapitated at the family home in the village of Talesh in the northern province of Gilan. "Despite the judicial authorities' insistence on a 'special handling' of the case, the verdict has terrified me and my family," Rana Dashti, the mother, told ILNA news agency. "I don't want my husband to return to our village ever again," she said, calling for the verdict to be reviewed and changed to "execution". Having lived with the man for 15 years, Dashti said she now fears for the life of the rest of her family. Ebtekar newspaper said at the time of Romina's killing that Iran's "eye for an eye" retributive justice does not apply to a father who kills his child, for which the customary sentence is jail time and fines. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has "expressed his regrets" following the girl's killing and called for the speedy passing of several anti-violence bills. Romina had reportedly run away after the father refused to give permission for her to marry a man 15 years her senior. But she was detained by authorities and taken home, despite having pleaded with a judge that she feared for her life if returned. The man she wanted to marry, Bahman Khavari, was sentenced to two years in prison, local media said, without specifying the charge. The legal age of marriage for women in Iran is 13.
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Brian Kilmeade would do well to remember President Trump and Joe Biden's houses are very much not created equal.On Friday morning, the Fox & Friends host and his co-hosts were discussing controversy over Trump's use of the White House for his Republican National Convention acceptance speech. Critics say it was unethical for Trump to use the federal building for a political purpose, and a violation of the Hatch Act for federal employees who participated in the convention. But Kilmeade took issue with criticizing Trump while Biden campaigned from his basement, asking why "Joe Biden can do it from his house but not the president?"> Brian Kilmeade defends Trump using the White House for his nomination speech: "So he wanted to do it from his house. So why is Joe Biden can do it from his house but not the president?" pic.twitter.com/VowKEK6eAO> > — Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) August 28, 2020Kilmeade is missing a few important facts here. For one thing, Biden didn't actually give his Democratic nomination acceptance speech from his basement. And while Trump has other properties he could've given his speech from without a problem, the home in question here actually belongs to the federal government.More stories from theweek.com Trump's RNC polling bounce more about 'subtraction on the Biden side,' pollster suggests 5 more scathingly funny cartoons about the Republican National Convention Many uninsured coronavirus patients reportedly don't qualify for Trump's coverage program because of other illnesses
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