Breaks Down the US-Iran Nuclear Claim

US-Iran Nuclear Claim

The Clock is Ticking? A Chinese Professor Breaks Down the US-Iran Nuclear Claim.

US-Iran Nuclear Claim.

We’ve all seen the headlines, the kind that carry the weight of potential conflict: "US alleges Iran is one month away from enriching uranium to nuclear grade." It’s a statement that sends ripples through international politics and spikes anxiety levels worldwide. But what’s the real story behind the alarm?

I recently watched a video clip featuring a Chinese professor offering a sharp, analytical take on this very situation. And honestly, it provided a much-needed layer of context to a story that’s often presented in black and white.

The professor’s analysis pushes us to look beyond the simple, alarming headline. The core of their argument is that this allegation isn't just a straightforward intelligence assessment; it's a highly strategic move. By putting a specific, short timeline on Iran’s nuclear capabilities—"one month away"—the US is effectively framing the debate.

Think about it. This framing achieves a few things:

1. It Creates Urgency:

 "One month" is not a distant, abstract threat. It’s immediate. It’s a deadline that can be used to justify a wide range of actions, from renewed diplomatic pressure to, more worryingly, a potential military escalation, all under the guise of "prevention."

2. It Simplifies a Complex Issue:

Nuclear enrichment is a deeply technical process with various levels and purposes. Producing low-enriched uranium for energy is different from the high-fidelity enrichment needed for a weapon. The professor’s analysis likely highlights how this nuance gets lost in the headline, painting all enrichment activities with the same dangerous brush.

3. It's a Negotiating Tactic:

Putting someone "on the clock" is a classic pressure tactic. It shifts the onus onto Iran to prove a negative—that it doesn't have weapon intentions—while simultaneously making any future diplomatic compromise look like a concession made under duress.

The professor’s perspective reminds us to ask the critical questions: Who is defining the timeline? What is their objective in making this public now? And what solutions are being presented alongside the warning?

This situation isn't just about centrifuges and uranium stockpiles. It's about the story we tell ourselves about the "other side." When a major power lays down a marker like this, the world watches and waits. The professor's analysis serves as a crucial reminder to listen carefully, not just to the allegation, but to the implications of the allegation itself.

It’s a tense geopolitical chess game, and the clock is indeed ticking. But the most important question might be: what happens when the alarm bells are designed to provoke a specific reaction?

Source;https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSuuDy5qJ/

What do you think? Is this a genuine warning or a strategic maneuver? Let's discuss it in the comments.

 

Robitussin cough syrup sold nationwide recalled due to contamination.

Haleon is recalling Robitussin cough syrup sold nationwide due to microbial contamination that could lead to deadly infections for at-risk people, the U.S.-based unit of the U.K.-based global consumer health company said on Wednesday.

Use of the recalled products could potentially result in severe or life-threatening fungal infections in those with impaired immune systems, Haleon stated in a notice posted by the Food and Drug Administration. Most users are unlikely to experience a serious health problem, but an infection that requiring medical intervention can't be ruled out, the company said.

Robitussin is widely used to relieve symptoms that come with cold, flu, hay fever or other respiratory allergies. The recall includes the following products, followed by their lot numbers and expiration dates:

.

Robitussin Honey CF Max Day Adult 4oz — T10810 — October 31, 2025

Robitussin Honey CF Max Day Adult 8oz — T08730, T08731, T08732, T08733 — May 31, 2025

Robitussin Honey CF Max Day Adult 8oz — T10808 — September 30, 2025

Robitussin Honey CF Max NT Adult 8oz — T08740, T08742 — June 30, 2026

Consumers who purchased the recalled products shouldn't use them, Haleon said. Customers with questions can call the company at (800) 245-1040 Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern time, or email mystory.us@haleon.com.

source:www.cbsnews.com

Western donors cut off funding to Arab groups amid Israel’s bombardment

 

Western donors are cutting Arab civil society groups off financially.

Beirut, Lebanon – Western donors are cutting Arab civil society groups off financially for criticizing Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, or failing to back them up when they do, according to human rights activists.

Palestinians mourn the destruction caused by Israeli attack on Rafah, Gaza Strip on November 14, 2023. Some Western countries have withdrawn funding for civil society and humanitarian organisations in Gaza and the West Bank [Hatem Ali/AP]

All humanitarian aid groups and civil societies that spoke to Al Jazeera said some Western donors had withdrawn financial support for Arab media outlets, human rights groups and think tanks. They also said that they have become disillusioned with many Western countries and foundations because of their support for Israel’s bombardment and siege of Gaza.

“The amount of anger and bitterness is not just limited to our people, but to us [as human rights advocates in the Arab region]. We don’t know how or if we can interact with some of these Western governments or partners ever again,” said Hossam Baghat, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).

Israel’s assault on Gaza, a besieged enclave rights groups describe as an “open-air prison”, has killed more than 11,200 people since it began on October 7. It has prompted UN experts and hundreds of scholars to warn that the 2.3 million people living there are facing a grave risk of genocide.

Al Jazeera spoke to civil society groups from Egypt, the occupied Palestinian territory and Lebanon who have spoken out against Israeli atrocities in Gaza. All said their advocacy and reporting are increasingly at odds with European donors who are mostly staying silent on Israel’s relentless attacks on civilians, which may be in violation of international law.

Funding ‘cut off without warning’

Days after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on army outposts and surrounding villages in southern Israel on October 7, Austria, Denmark, Germany and Sweden suspended bilateral development aid programmes in Gaza and the West Bank, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). The pause amounts to $139m in lost funding and affects UN agencies, the Palestinian Authority governing the West Bank and a number of civil society organisations.

On October 11, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) also suspended millions of dollars worth of funding to six Palestinian and five Israeli civil society organisations.

Zaid Amali, the public discourse and programme director for MIFTAH, whose stated goal is to promote democracy and good governance in the occupied Palestinian territory, said they were given a very positive review after the Swiss FDFA assessed their activities in September.

But, after Hamas’s deadly attack, MIFTAH’s funding was cut without warning.

“We know that this decision may have come as a result of pressure from right-wing groups in Switzerland,” he said.

Al Jazeera contacted the Swiss FDFA to ask why funding for Palestinian and Israeli civil society groups, which HRW has described as respected organisations, had been paused.

“For these eleven NGOs, the FDFA had external indications that they had potentially violated the Code of Conduct and/or the FDFA’s anti-discrimination clause,” Lea Zurcher, the media spokesperson, replied in an email.

Another Palestinian civil organisation, which also lost funding from the FDFA, partly attributed the decision to intense “lobbying” from NGO Monitor, an Israeli NGO. A spokesperson for the organisation spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

NGO Monitor operates a database of Palestinian civil society groups which it claims are involved in “whitewashing violence and terrorism, demonisation and legal warfare, targeting Israeli officials and BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns, and promoting anti-Semitic propaganda.”

NGO Monitor took some credit for the FDFA’s decision on X (formerly Twitter) and has previously said its research was cited by Swiss parliamentarians calling for funding to be cut to Israeli human rights groups such as B’tselem which work for the welfare of Palestinians. “There are a variety of non-government organisations like NGO Monitor with innocuous-sounding names that seek to marginalise voices critical of the Israeli government…but these organisations never criticise the Israeli government’s oppression of Palestinians,” said Omar Shakir, the Israel-Palestine director at HRW.

“These groups don’t operate alone,” Shakir added. “They tend to be funded [by] or coordinate with the Israeli government.”

Al Jazeera contacted NGO Monitor for comment, but it did not respond by the time of publication.

Arab civil society, media and humanitarian organisations often rely on Western partners and donors but many say they feel let down by Western silence on the Israeli bombardment of Gaza [John Minchillo/AP]

Western funding – ‘the journey will end’

European donors and partners have also refrained from expressing solidarity with Arab media outlets – when they usually would – after they were censored or smeared for their reporting on Israel-Palestine, two Arabic media organisations told Al Jazeera.

A journalist from one Arab media outlet, who asked to remain anonymous so as not to compromise funding for his organisation, said Western donors appeared happy to support independent media organisations only so far as they do not infringe on their own support for Israel.

“How the West will reconcile its endorsement of ‘independent media’ and ‘freedom of expression’ with criticisms levelled at its tacit or explicit endorsement of the death of [11,000] Palestinians…remains to be seen in full,” the source told Al Jazeera.

“But there are indications that some Western organisations have responded by prioritising their support for Israel over their commitment to regional press and civil society organisations,” he added.

The founder of another media outlet, which also relies heavily on Western donors, added that many partners – albeit not all – have continued to support independent journalism in the region, including his own outlet.

“We always knew that this reliance on Western funding is a trade-off, but as long as we are unrestricted editorially then it is worth doing. When or if that funding becomes more restricted, then the journey will end,” the source told Al Jazeera.

Position of UN agencies ‘defies logic’

Regional civil society organisations are also losing faith in UN institutions which either have not spoken out against Israeli atrocities in Gaza or have only done so after considerable delay, despite mounting evidence that such actions may amount to war crimes.

Ayman Mhanna, executive director of the Samir Kassir Foundation (Skeyes), which advocates for press freedom across the Levant, said he was particularly disappointed in the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF), which partners with his organisation but has been mostly silent on the issue of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and violence in the West Bank.

“They are silent. They have not taken action against independent media [that they support], but their silence isn’t something that’s really understandable right now,” he told Al Jazeera.

Mhanna added that he expects UN bodies to continue reiterating the stance of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who called for a ceasefire, raised the issue of Israel’s occupation as a root cause of violence and urged all sides to refrain from committing war crimes during a speech he gave on October 24. “We are not expecting them to take a completely pro-Palestine position, but what is happening right now defies any logic.”

On November 6, the heads of several UN bodies issued a joint statement along with global aid groups calling for a complete ceasefire. But Martin Griffiths, who leads the Office for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordination (OCHA), later requested a “humanitarian pause”.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, urged Griffiths and others to call for a full ceasefire.

Almali, from MIFTAH, said the silence from various institutions and Western countries that claim to support international law risks completely eroding the credibility of human rights work in Palestine, the wider Arab region and even the world. Other activists echoed the same sentiment.

He added that the global community had failed Palestinians long before October 7.

“They have failed us for 75 years,” he said, referencing the Nakba – or catastrophe – when 700,000 Palestinians were dispossessed from their land during the creation of Israel. “But right now, we’re really feeling it.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

 

Major 7.7 magnitude earthquake strikes near New Caledonia, triggering tsunami warning.

A major 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Friday in the Pacific Ocean southeast of New Caledonia, triggering a tsunami warning, the US Geological Service said. The quake was detected at a depth of 37 kilometers (23 miles), it said.

“Based on the preliminary earthquake parameters, hazardous tsunami waves are possible for coasts within 1,000 km (620 miles) of the earthquake epicenter,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said in a bulletin. It urged people in threatened coastal areas to be alert. A hotel receptionist in the New Caledonia capital Noumea told AFP she felt no shaking from the tremor.

source: www.englishalarbiya.net 

Bard Vs. ChatGPT

 

The Major Difference Between The AI Chat Tools.

On Tuesday, the battle between Google and Microsoft escalated as Google opened public access to Bard, its new AI chatbot tool and ChatGPT’s latest competitor, but the two have major differences, including the ability to remember past conversations and their knowledge base limits.

Only offered to select markets in the U.S. and U.K., hopeful users can sign up for the waitlist to gain access to Bard, which claims to help users plan a birthday party, understand complex topics and create a pros and cons list for a tough decision.

 In an effort to separate the chatbot, which is designed to give human-like responses, from its popular search engine, Google has created a standalone website for Bard. Bard runs on Google’s large learning model Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA), which it promises will be updated with new information over time.

In November 2022, Microsoft-backed OpenAI released ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot that can answer questions and solve unique problems, like writing a college level essay or drafting a contract between artist and producer. Google has been in a race to compete with OpenAI since December 2022, declaring a “code red” in response to the launch of ChatGPT. 

 MAIN DIFFERENCES.

Though both OpenAI and Google acknowledge their chatbots aren’t perfect and may say inaccurate or offensive things from time to time, the two have stark differences: 

Coding:

 One of the most prominent things that gave ChatGPT its claim to fame was its ability to create complex code. It can even debug code. Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and University College London put the chatbot against industry “standard automated program repair techniques,'' and two common deep learning approaches and found ChatGPT “is competitive to the common deep learning approaches,” and produced “notably better” results than the standard program repair approaches, according to their paper published in arXiv. However, Google stated Bard is “still learning code,” so the feature isn’t available just yet.

Conversation Retention: 

According to OpenAI, ChatGPT is able to remember what was said in previous conversations. But there are two caveats: the bot can only remember up to 3,000 words (anything beyond that isn’t stored), and it doesn’t use past conversation to form responses. Bard’s ability to retain context is “purposefully limited for now,” Google said, but the company claims the ability will grow over time.

Responses:

 One of the biggest differences between the two is Bard’s LaMDA can draw responses from the internet, so it will always have the latest responses. It’s also integrated into Google’s search engine and can provide direct links to websites when prompted. On the other hand, ChatGPT runs on Generative Pre-training Transformer-4 (GPT-4), so all of its responses come from its knowledge base, whose cutoff date ends in September 2021, so it’s limited in newer information and research. 

Language: 

ChatGPT knows several languages, including Spanish, French, Arabic, Mandarin, Italian, Japanese and Korean, though its proficiency in responses varies by language and its primary language is English. Bard is only available and can only speak in English.

 Drafts: 

Bard creates several different versions of every prompt (called “drafts”), allowing users to pick the best response. This was implemented because there’s a “sense of authoritativeness” when only one response is used, Jack Krawczyk, a senior product director at Google, told MIT Technology Review. ChatGPT only produces one response to questions.

Source: Forbes

7 injured after escalator malfunctions at NYC mall

7 injured after escalator malfunctions at NYC mall

Seven people have been injured, two seriously, when an escalator at a New York City mall malfunctioned, causing one person to fall and set off a chain reaction down the line.

The mishap Tuesday night occurred at the Atlantic Terminal Mall in Brooklyn.

Witnesses say the down escalator was stationary when it suddenly started moving, causing the first person to tumble.

Two people were rushed to Lutheran Hospital in serious but stable condition. Officials say their injuries did not appear to be life-threatening. Five others were taken to Long Island College Hospital for treatment of minor injuries.

The mall escalators were taken out of service.







source:foxnews

Chattanooga school bus crash

Chattanooga school bus crash: Driver went 'well above' speed limit, affidavit says

The driver in the fatal school bus crash near Chattanooga, Tennessee, was traveling "well above the posted speed limit of 30 mph" when he lost control of the bus Monday, swerving off the roadway, according to an arrest affidavit. Driver Johnthony Walker "lost control of the bus and swerved off of the roadway to the right, striking an elevated driveway and mailbox, swerved to the left and began to overturn, striking a telephone pole and a tree," the affidavit says. At least five children were killed in the crash, school officials said.

Obama Criticizes F.B.I. Director

Obama Criticizes F.B.I. Director: ‘We Don’t Operate on Incomplete Information’

WASHINGTON — President Obama criticized the decision by his F.B.I. director to alert Congress on Friday about the discovery of new emails related to the Hillary Clinton server case, implying that it violated investigative norms and trafficked in innuendo.

“We don’t operate on incomplete information,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with NowThis News, broadcast Wednesday. “We don’t operate on leaks. We operate based on concrete decisions that are made.”

“When this was investigated thoroughly the last time, the conclusion of the F.B.I., the conclusion of the Justice Department, the conclusion of repeated congressional investigations was that she had made some mistakes but that there wasn’t anything there that was prosecutable,” Mr. Obama said.

'We don't operate on innuendo' — President Obama discusses Hillary, emails, and the FBI in an exclusive interview with NowThis pic.twitter.com/0J6tJyEYSh

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) November 2, 2016

The president did not mention the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, by name, but it was clear Mr. Obama was referring to him.

Declaring that he had “made a very deliberate effort to make sure that I don’t look like I’m meddling in what are supposed to be independent processes for making these assessments,” Mr. Obama nonetheless expressed confidence in Mrs. Clinton and her integrity.

Mr. Obama’s comments were somewhat surprising since he weighed in on the investigation last year before the F.B.I. had determined that neither Mrs. Clinton nor her aides would face charges for mishandling classified information that was found on the secretary of state’s private email server. The president’s comments angered F.B.I. agents.

“I don’t think it posed a national security problem,” Mr. Obama said on “60 Minutes” on CBS in October 2015. He said it had been a mistake for Mrs. Clinton to use a private email account when she was secretary of state, but his conclusion was unmistakable: “This is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.”

Mr. Obama took a sharper tone than his press secretary, Josh Earnest, who said on Tuesday that the White House did not have an official position on Mr. Comey’s decision.





source: nytimes

Amber Alert issued for car after it was carjacked with baby inside

Amber Alert issued for car after it was carjacked with baby inside

Maryland State Police issued an Amber Alert for a car that was carjacked Wednesday afternoon with an 11-month-old baby inside.

Police are looking for a 2009 white Suzuki SUV with the Maryland tag 42688CF. The car was last seen in the 400 block of Kane Street, in the Bayview neighborhood. The carjacking happened around 1:30 p.m.

Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton the final debate

5 things Clinton needs to do in the final debate

This is the final debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump before the Nov. 8 election, and both candidates will face tough questions in Las Vegas.

Trump will have to answer for a growing roster of allegations from women accusing him of improper sexual contact, while Clinton is contending with a trove of hacked emails from her campaign chairman, John Podesta.

Here are five things the Democratic nominee needs to do in the final debate:

The WikiLeaks cloud

There’s been a stream of embarrassing email exchanges between Podesta and Clinton aides made public through the website WikiLeaks. The campaign argues the hacked communications are being released via a Russian government attempt to influence the U.S. election, but they're not denying the veracity of many of them.

They include exchanges showing internal concerns about everything from Clinton's ability to convey sincerity to her use of a private email server.

While there is no single smoking gun, collectively the messages risk painting a cynical view of her campaign that could endure beyond the election. Clinton must have an effective rejoinder that doesn’t revolve solely around blaming the Russians.

Buck up liberals

The biggest risk for Clinton is a demoralized Democratic base, mainly among liberals whose first choice was Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. She needs to reactivate President Obama’s winning coalition that relied on strong turnout among young people and African Americans.

Trashing Trump probably isn’t enough, and time is running out.

Some WikiLeaks exchanges underscore just how significant a struggle this has been for her all along. In one exchange shortly after she lost New Hampshire to Sanders, Joel Benenson, the campaign’s chief strategist, expressed uncertainty about what “she believes or wants her core message to be?”

Let Trump be Trump

Since the first debate on Sept. 26 at Hofstra University, Clinton’s largely stayed out of the spotlight as Trump’s campaign reels from accusations about his treatment of women, including numerous allegations of sexual misconduct.

She’s kept a lighter campaign schedule than Trump, opting for private fundraisers and intense debate preparations, while allegations about Trump’s past behavior — and his response to them — have dominated the headlines.

In an election where the public is overwhelmingly negative about both of their options, the outcome appears to hinge on which candidate proves to be the least unpopular choice. In that context, it makes sense for Clinton to pull her punches if it looks like Trump is continuing to drive up his own negative ratings.

Sharpen answer on trade

Of all the WikiLeaks emails, the most politically damaging may be an excerpt of a 2013 Clinton speech to a Brazilian bank in which she said her “dream” is “a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.”

The transcripts of Clinton’s paid Wall Street speeches have been a flashpoint since the primaries, and this excerpt probably shows why she’s kept them under wraps.

The statement risks inflaming both her liberal base — by pining for the same free-trade deals they’ve railed against — and Trump’s voters, by calling for a freewheeling system of open immigration. They also stand in contrast to the positions she’s taken publicly in this campaign, as Clinton’s insisted she’s a critic of trade deals that have hurt U.S. workers and denied she is for totally open borders.

The debate moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace, is almost guaranteed to ask her about this.

Be ready, literally, for anything

Based on numerous polls, Trump is trailing Clinton by margins that have proved to be historically difficult to recover from.

During the last debate, Trump invited women who’ve accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault to the debate hall to try to confront the former president and in order to create an embarrassing spectacle tarnishing her image.

With Trump already potentially positioning himself for a defeat, arguing the system is “rigged,” it’s anyone’s guess as to what kind of opposition research he’ll throw out or what kind of made-for-TV spectacle he’ll orchestrate.




source: usatoday

Nobel Prize in literature

Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize in literature

Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for work that the Swedish Academy described as “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

He is the first American to win the prize since Toni Morrison in 1993, and a groundbreaking choice by the Nobel committee to select the first literature laureate whose career has primarily been as a musician.

Although long rumored as a contender for the prize, Dylan was far down the list of predicted winners, which included such renown writers as Haruki Murakami and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o.

This is the second year in a row that the academy has turned away from fiction writers for the literature prize. And it’s possibly the first year that the prize has gone to someone who is primarily a musician, not a writer.

Shocking part of Donald Trump’s tax records

The most shocking part of Donald Trump’s tax records isn’t the $916 million loss everyone’s talking about

Despite what Donald Trump says, we really can learn a lot from his tax returns — even from the partial ones made public by The New York Times.

The major takeaway from the three pages of Trump’s 1995 returns that the Times made public is that Trump is right when he says the system is rigged. What he doesn’t say is that it’s rigged in his favor and in the favor of people like him — and against regular people, those of us who earn money, pay income tax on it, and financially support the country in which we live.

To keep things relatively simple, I’m telling you what I see in Trump’s returns, based on my decades of experience parsing financial filings. I will try not to get bogged down in numbers and technicalities.

Sure, the $900 million-plus of losses reported by the New York Times — losses that could be used to offset income for a total of 18 years — are totally shocking. Legal, yes. But shocking.

But there’s something I consider even more shocking — although it involves a much smaller number.

By my read of the Trump tax return published by the New York Times, he would have been tax-free because of a $15,818,562 loss reported on Line 11 of the return under “Rental real estate, royalties, partnerships, S corporations, trusts, etc.” It looks to me that this loss reflects the outrageous, special tax break that real estate developers that people like Trump can get, but that the rest of us can’t.

To give you the brief version, people who qualify as real estate developers or managers can use depreciation deductions to offset non-real-estate income. But people who don’t qualify for this special treatment can’t do that. (For full details, ask a tax expert about Section 469 of the tax code.)

Now, to the $900-plus million loss reported by the New York Times — which vastly exceeds any cash losses that Trump would have suffered in the collapse of his casino-hotel-airline empire, which fell apart in the early 1990s and resulted in four bankruptcies. (He had two more bankruptcies, in 2004 and 2009, from a publicly traded company in which he was the primary shareholder.)

I’m guessing, but I can’t tell for sure — there’s not enough information — that the loss has to do with the collapse of his empire. I don’t understand how Trump, who had very little of his own cash invested in his projects in the 1990s but did personally guarantee part of their debt, could end up with tax losses of that magnitude. They’re almost certainly paper losses rather than out-of-pocket losses.

It’s possible that those losses somehow vanished into the ether from which they came — we have no way to tell.

What we can tell, though, is that what I wrote recently about Trump’s “That makes me smart” boast when Hillary Clinton prodded him about not paying taxes was right.

If Trump were truly smart — and wanted to lead by example — he would have disclosed his tax returns, showed the loopholes he used, and vowed to close them.

I have plenty of problems with the Clintons’ financial behavior, as I wrote. But at least Hillary Clinton is proposing tax code changes that would cost her and her family money. Trump, by contrast, is proposing tax changes that would greatly benefit the commercial real estate business, which is his primary field, and would greatly benefit his own family. And when I asked his campaign last week whether he was proposing any tax changes that would cost him and/or his family any money, I got no reply.

This whole column and most of the articles I’ve read are based almost entirely on just one page of Trump’s tax filings — the front page of his 1995 New York return. So, you see, we have learned quite a lot from Trump’s tax returns — and we could learn a lot more when and if more of them make their way into the public domain.

source: washingtonpost

Shootings near Illinois university campus

1 dead, 6 wounded in shootings near Illinois university campus

Preliminary investigations suggest that two separate shooting incidents near the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, which cost one man his life and wounded six others, were related, according to a statement posted by the city of Champaign.

Police are looking for the suspect or suspects in both incidents, which occurred early Sunday morning.

In the first shooting, Champaign police said an argument during a party inside an apartment spilled out into the street. There a fight broke out and shots were fired.

Four people who were not involved in the fight were injured, police said.

They were taken to to area hospitals, where one person later died from his injuries.

Police identified the victim as George Korchev. Police say Korchev was just walking by by the area when he was killed.

A fifth person running from the gunfire was struck by a vehicle and suffered minor injuries, Champaign police said.

Police are also seeking the driver involved in the vehicle accident.

Thirty minutes later, just after 1:00 am, police say a second shooting occurred nearby and a victim with a non-life-threatening gunshot wounds was transported to the hospital.

One of the surviving gunshot victims is a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign student, according to university spokeswoman Robin Kaler. Kaler said the second shooting occurred in an area where there are a lot of shops and restaurants.

source: CNN

Minnesota mall attack

Man shot dead after stabbing 8 people

A man wearing a private security company uniform stabbed eight people at a Minnesota mall before an off-duty police officer shot him dead, authorities said.

Seven of the wounded were treated and released, while one victim remains hospitalized.
None of their injuries are life-threatening, St. Cloud Police chief William B. Anderson said.
Witnesses said the man entered Crossroads Mall on Saturday night, made a reference to Allah and asked at least one person if they were Muslims before he attacked, police said in a statement.
The stabbings occurred in multiple locations inside the mall, including in the common area and several stores. The mall has security teams on site but they are not armed.
Shortly after, an officer confronted the attacker.
"The individual we believe to be responsible for the victim's stab wounds is currently deceased inside the mall," police said early Sunday.

Police knew attacker

While the attacker was not identified, authorities said he'd had three previous encounters with police.
Anderson said most of the encounters were for minor traffic violations. None resulted in an arrest.

Anderson declined to provide further details or say whether the attacker was a resident of St. Cloud. He said he is not ready to describe the stabbings as a terrorist attack until details such as a motive are established.
"What we know is it is a lone suspect who attacked at least eight people ... whether that was a terrorist attack or not, I'm not willing to say that right now because we just don't know," Anderson said.

City changed forever

The police chief said the attack had changed the city forever.
"It's an awful day. We've got eight victims who were assaulted here in our mall ... things wont be the same here," Anderson said.
While the mall will be closed until further notice because it's considered a crime scene, he said, there's no imminent threat to the city.
"Right now, we don't have information to indicate anyone else is involved," he said.
St. Cloud is about 65 miles northwest of Minneapolis, and has a population of 67,000.

Other attacks

The mall stabbing was one of several incidents reported nationwide Saturday.

In New York City, an explosion ripped through Chelsea, leaving dozens injured. A second device with wiring was found blocks away, authorities say.
In neighboring New Jersey, an explosion went off in a garbage can on the route of a Marine Corps charity run. Thousands of people were about to participate in the 5K race in Seaside Park. No injuries were reported.





source: CNN

Hillary Clinton's health

What we know about Hillary Clinton's health

As Hillary Clinton fell ill during a 9/11 commemoration ceremony Sunday morning, both Democrats and Republicans alike raised questions of concern about her health.

The Democratic presidential nominee left the ceremony early, after an hour and a half, when she started to feel "overheated," said Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill in a statement. She took some time to recover, about an hour and 45 minutes, at her daughter's apartment. When she re-emerged around noon she waved to passersby, and told reporters she was feeling "great."

he incident occurred just days after Republicans argued that moments when Clinton coughed along the campaign trail were signs of a more serious health issue. Her campaign said she suffered seasonal allergies.

"Secretary Clinton has been experiencing a cough related to allergies. On Friday, during follow-up evaluation of her prolonged cough, she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule. While at this morning's event, she became overheated and dehydrated. I have just examined her and she is now rehydrated and recovering nicely," said Clinton's physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack, in a written statement on Sunday evening.
From seasonal pollen allergies to hypothyroidism, here's what we know about the 68-year-old presidential candidate's health.

Clinton's blood clots

Clinton's current bout with pneumonia does not negate the fact that as secretary of state she withstood an extensive travel schedule and maintained good health.
In a report that was released in July 2015 (PDF), Bardack wrote, "Mrs. Clinton is a healthy 67-year-old female whose current medical conditions include hypothyroidism and seasonal pollen allergies. Her past medical history is notable for a deep vein thrombosis in 1998 and in 2009, an elbow fracture in 2009 and a concussion in 2012. ..."
"She participates in a healthy lifestyle and has had a full medical evaluation, which reveals no evidence of additional medical issues or cardiovascular disease. Her cancer screening evaluations are all negative. She is in excellent physical condition and fit to serve as President of the United States."
Clinton was advised in 1998 to take blood-thinning medications to prevent deep vein thrombosis blood clots when she traveled on long-distance flights, Bardack wrote.
Blood clots can be a serious health risk for travelers, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Blood clots can form in the deep veins of the legs when a person sits still for an extended period, such as during long flights. The problem turns serious if the blood clot breaks off and travels to other parts of the body, such as the lungs.
Along with taking blood-thinning medication, Clinton takes medication for hypothyroidism, a condition in which her thyroid gland is underactive and doesn't produce enough important hormones, according to Bardack's report.

The report also indicated that, in a physical exam on March 21, 2015, Clinton's vital signs appeared "healthy" with a blood pressure of 100/65, heart rate of 72, respiratory rate of 18, and temperature of 98.7. The remainder of her exam was normal.

Clinton's bones and brain

Clinton's health history also includes a bone fracture. She stumbled at the State Department in summer 2009 and fractured her right elbow. The injury resulted in her having to undergo a two-hour surgery, which was deemed successful.
Then, in December 2012, Clinton suffered a stomach virus after traveling and fainted, which caused her to suffer a concussion, according to Bardack's report. In follow-up evaluations, she was found to have a transverse sinus venous thrombosis -- in other words, a blood clot in the brain. The clot later dissolved.
A concussion is a brain injury, explained Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent and a practicing neurosurgeon.
"What we've heard from her medical note is, looking at the follow-up, there would be some concern, but she's been tested and there's no long-term impact from her brain and the blood clot has resolved," he said.
Gupta added that it is difficult to comment on Clinton's health without additional information.
"This diagnosis of pneumonia came in on Friday," he said. "It's a totally treatable thing, there's no question about it, but it's a serious diagnosis still and is something that should not be taken lightly."

The Donald Trump campaign hadn't yet commented on Clinton's pneumonia diagnosis as of Sunday evening. Trump himself has released minimal information about his health.
Dr. Harold Bornstein, Trump's personal physician, released a letter (PDF) in December 2015 that lacked much medical detail, but noted that Trump would be "the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."
Gupta found such language in the letter to be surprising and "almost comically" lacking objectivity.



source: CNN

Black Lives Matter protesters removed from London airport runway, police say

Black Lives Matter protesters removed from London airport runway, police say

London (CNN)A group of Black Lives Matter activists whose protest temporarily shut down a London airport Tuesday have been arrested and removed from the runway, police said.

Evacuated residents in limbo, California

Evacuated residents in limbo as wildfire burns in California

A DC-10 drops fire retardant on a wildfire as southbound Interstate 15 remains closed in the Cajon Pass, Calif

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – Twisted metal gates and rusted mailboxes remained where houses once stood. Flames had turned a lot full of cars — including some vintage models — into a junkyard of hollowed-out shells. Countless trees were scorched or gone.

Scenes of destruction were everywhere Thursday after a huge wildfire sped through mountains and high desert 60 miles east of Los Angeles so swiftly that it took seasoned firefighters off guard.

But the day also brought the biggest gains yet against the blaze, with containment jumping from 22 percent, up from just 4 percent when the day began. The fire has burned 56 square miles.

An aerial flyover revealed significant property loss, but crews were just beginning to comb through the rubble to document the devastation.

"Most of the areas where there was structural damage, they're still smoldering," U.S. Forest Service spokesman Jake Rodriguez said.

Many residents remained in limbo, unable to go home and wondering whether anything would be left when they can.

"I want it to be over, but more than anything I just want to know, 'Is my house still there?' " Lisa Gregory said as she sat in a lawn chair under a tree at an evacuation center.

At its height, more than 34,000 homes and about 82,000 residents were under evacuation warnings.

While the east side of the fire near the desert was brought partly under control and some evacuees on that side were allowed to return home, the west side's hillsides were still showing heavy flames and thick smoke.

Meanwhile, a new fire broke out in rural Santa Barbara County, quickly surging to about 500 acres and prompting the evacuation of a pair of campgrounds.

Another blaze near Lake Isabella in Kern and Tulare counties in the center of the state had burned more than two square miles.

During five years of drought, California's wildlands have seen a continuous streak of destructive and sometimes deadly fires. No deaths have been reported in the latest fire, but crews assessing property damage were using cadaver dogs during searches.

The dry vegetation is like firewood, said fire information officer Sean Collins.

"It burns that much quicker, that much hotter. The rate of travel is extremely fast," he said.

Wildfires across the country in recent years have grown more ferocious and expensive to fight.

Last year's fire season set a record with more than 15,625 square miles of land charred. It was also the costliest on record with $2.1 billion spent to fight fires from Alaska to Florida.

Experts have blamed several factors including rising temperatures that more quickly dry out forests and vegetation. Decades of aggressively knocking down small fires also have led to the buildup of flammable fuel. On top of that, more people are moving into fire-prone regions, complicating firefighting efforts.

In the Southern California fire, air tankers bombarded rugged slopes with fire retardant, and a squadron of helicopters dropped load after load of water to corral flames. On the ground, firefighters and bulldozers worked to protect the ski town of Wrightwood and other areas high in the San Gabriel Mountains.

The fire unleashed its initial fury on a semi-rural landscape dotted with small ranches and homes in Cajon Pass and on the edge of the Mojave Desert before climbing the mountains.

Travel was returning to normal in the pass — a major corridor for trucking, rail and commuter traffic — after Interstate 15 was fully reopened.

In mountains north of San Francisco, fire crews gained more ground on a wildfire as damage inspectors surveyed the area to determine how many structures were destroyed or damaged.

The 6-square-mile blaze was 55 percent contained after destroying at least 268 structures, including 175 homes and eight businesses, in the working-class community of Lower Lake.

The equipment manager, or "armorer," of the U.S. Olympic fencing team, was among those who lost their homes. Matthew Porter was in Rio with the medal-winning team when the house burned.

Damin Pashilk is charged with 14 counts of arson in connection with 12 separate fires dating back to July 2015 and one count of attempted arson. The 40-year-old construction worker appeared in court Wednesday, but he did not enter a plea.




source: foxnews

Google Employee Killed While Jogging Fought For Her Life

Detectives: Google Employee Killed While Jogging Fought For Her Life

Vanessa Marcotte fought hard for her life.

During a press conference held Thursday evening, investigators said the 27-year-old Google employee, who was killed Sunday night while jogging in Princeton, Massachusetts, put up a desperate struggle, likely leaving her killer bruised and scratched.

Pilot fire grows to more than 7,700 acres

Pilot fire grows to more than 7,700 acres, threatening homes and forcing schools to close

Pilot fire

A wildfire in the mountains of San Bernardino County grew to more than 7,700 acres Tuesday, threatening thousands of homes and forcing schools to close, as crews across the state battled raging blazes in the late summer heat.

The Pilot fire has scorched 7,736 acres and is 6% contained, according to the U.S. Forest Service. About 5,000 homes were under voluntary and mandatory evacuation orders, according to Bob Poole, a spokesman for the forest agency.

Chandra Levy murder mystery

Chandra Levy murder mystery deepens as prosecutors drop case

In this April 22, 2009, file photo, Ingmar Guandique is escorted from the Violent Crimes Unit in Washington. Jacquelyn Martin AP

WASHINGTON
In another stunning reversal, federal prosecutors on Thursday abruptly dropped murder charges against the Salvadoran immigrant previously convicted of killing former intern and Modesto, California, resident Chandra Levy.

The unexpected decision casts back into mystery the question of what really happened to Levy more than 15 years ago when she disappeared while apparently jogging through the capital’s Rock Creek Park. It follows years of defense lawyers’ investigation into the prosecutors’ chief witness, who claimed Ingmar Guandique confessed to the crime while the two shared a jail cell.