News and Headlines: In The News, Politics, World News, Commentary/Opinion.
In The News:
LAPD officer sues city over sexual harassment claims, alleges Mayor Garcetti didn’t try to stop it
Officer Matthew Garza alleges in the complaint that he was subjected to unwanted harassment from Rick Jacobs, a senior political adviser to the Democratic mayor.
Garza began working as part of Garcetti’s protection detail in October 2013, KTTV-TV reported. Officers assigned to the team would routinely accompany the mayor to and from functions and various engagements in and outside Los Angeles.
The lawsuit noted several instances in which Jacobs allegedly made inappropriate comments or behaved unprofessionally toward Garza.
Armed cops may be removed from traffic enforcement in this California city
The Berkeley City Council will consider a proposal on Tuesday night that would replace police officers in traffic stops with unarmed city workers.
The proposal would create a Department of Transportation that would take traffic enforcement out of police jurisdiction and replace officers with “civil servants that would manage traffic and parking enforcement, crossing guards, and collision response,” NBC Bay Area reported.
If the proposal is approved, the city manager would start a “community engagement process” to create the transportation department, according to the Associated Press.
Dispute over wearing coronavirus mask inside Michigan convenience store leads to stabbing, fatal shooting
Sean Ernest Ruis, 43, of Grand Ledge, walked into a Quality Dairy store in Windsor Township before just after 6:30 a.m. and got into an argument with 77-year-old man inside during a confrontation over Ruis’ refusal to wear a face covering, Michigan State Police Lt. Brian Oleksyk said.
Both men left the store and continued the dispute in the parking lot. Ruis stabbed the man and fled the area in a car, Oleksyk said.
An Eaton County Sheriff’s deputy spotted the vehicle and initiated a traffic stop. Ruis allegedly got out the car holding a knife and approached the deputy, authorities said.
USS Bonhomme Richard remains on fire, two more sailors hurt while battling blaze
Two more sailors were hurt while fighting the blaze on Monday night, the Navy said, following an announcement that firefighters had made “significant progress” during the day with the help of helicopter operations.
According to the Navy, a total of 36 sailors and 23 civilians were treated for injuries like heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation caused by the fire, and all have been released following treatment.
In a statement released late Monday night, Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3, said a one-nautical mile safety zone has been established for the safety of the public.
Judge rejects Harvey Weinstein $19M settlement
The $18.9 million of the settlement would have gone toward a victim’s compensation fund, while another $12 million would pay legal fees for Harvey Weinstein, his brother Bob Weinstein and other members of the Weinstein Company’s board.
District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein called the money set aside for legal fees “obnoxious.”
Under the terms of the settlement, he’s not required to admit to sexual misconduct and the plaintiffs would be released from any non-disclosure agreements.
Confederate statue removed from prominent spot at Ole Miss
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Confederate monument that’s long been a divisive symbol at the University of Mississippi was removed Tuesday from a prominent spot on the Oxford campus, just two weeks after Mississippi surrendered the last state flag in the U.S. with the Confederate battle emblem.
The marble statue of a saluting Confederate soldier will be taken to a Civil War cemetery in a secluded area of campus.
Students and faculty have pushed the university for years to move the statue, but they say their work is being undermined by administrators’ plan to beautify the cemetery.
Portland’s unrest continues for six straight weeks with no apparent end in sight
Demonstrators have been seen lighting mattresses on fire and setting off fireworks in the streets.
Just this weekend, a federal officer protecting a closed courthouse was struck in the head and shoulder with a hammer as protesters attempted to break down the court’s door.
The courthouse suffered an estimated $50,000 in damages, according to KGW.
Another Historically Violent Weekend Strikes Major U.S. Cities
According to the New York Post, the city suffered another bout of “astronomical” violence after over 17 people were shot in multiple boroughs Monday.
“Those numbers would be high for a Friday or Saturday, but for a Monday they are astronomical,” one Brooklyn cop told the New York Post.
Chicago, Portland, Minneapolis, Houston,
Teenager robbed at gunpoint while selling water to support his elderly grandma – community rallies around him
He is positioned there seven days a week, 12 hours a day. He sells the bottled water as a way to ensure that his grandmother can make ends meet, after she lost her husband last year.
Oh, also…Cruz is 16 years old.
“I tell them, ‘God bless’ all the time, every single time I sell water. Thank you, thank you, God bless, even if they don’t buy it. I just still say, ‘God bless.’ I appreciate everything.
“I just try my best, I have two sisters, I make sure they good and give them money here and there.”
NOPD looking for getaway vehicle used in 9-year-old’s 7th Ward killing
New Orleans Police Supt. Shaun Ferguson said the victims, who were all friends, were approached on foot by at least one suspect, who opened fire on them.
Ferguson said one of the victims, the 9-year-old, died at the scene from a gunshot wound to the head.
A 13-year-old was shot in the leg and a girl police say is 15 or 16 was shot in the stomach.
A $5,000 reward for information leading to arrests has been issued by Crimestoppers New Orleans. (You can call their hotline anonymously at 504-822-1111).
$15M in Cocaine Seized in Single Texas Border Bust
The drawbridge cameras possess enhanced motion detection and low light capabilities, which have been modified for law enforcement needs. Operation Drawbridge uses hundreds of cameras along the border.
Detection alerts are sent simultaneously to the Border Patrol, sheriffs, the Fusion Center, and other border law enforcement partners under the operation of Texas DPS Information Technology (IT) personnel.
Since the inception of the program through the end of January 2019, Operation Drawbridge reportedly detected more than 450,000 criminal exploitations of the Texas-Mexico border and has directly resulted in the apprehension of more than 250,000 individuals.
It is also credited for the seizure of more than 248 tons of marijuana.
Philly to cancel all large events for 6 months, says COVID-19 risk is too great
The city’s COVID-19 numbers have fluctuated in the last few weeks — sometimes rising slightly, sometimes stabilizing.
What they haven’t been doing is going down, and with cases rising sharply in other places, large events that would attract out-of-towners are seen as too risky.
A city official says the decision has been made to cancel them.
That includes the Thanksgiving Day parade, the Mummers Parade and all the fall road races, including the Rock and Roll half marathon and the Broad Street Run, which had been postponed to October.
Florida hospital admits its COVID positivity rate is 10x lower than first reported
Orlando news station Fox 35 said on Monday that it undertook an investigation of those “astronomical figures,” after which several medical facilities confirmed that their actual positive rates were much lower than those reported to the state government.
The news station reported that area hospital Orlando Health “confirmed errors in the report,” with hospital officials stating their their “positivity rate is only 9.4 percent, not 98 percent.”
Another Orlando-area lab, Veteran’s Medical Center, listed “a positivity rate of 76 percent,” but a company official said that “the positivity rate for the center is actually 6 percent.”
Bari Weiss quits New York Times after bullying by colleagues over views: ‘They have called me a Nazi and a racist’
Weiss then wrote that “Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times,” but social media acts as the ultimate editor.
“As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space.
Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.
I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history,” she wrote. “Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.”
Andrew Sullivan announces resignation from New York magazine, says reason ‘pretty self-evident’
Sullivan tweeted news of his resignation shortly after New York Times opinion columnist and editor Bari Weiss released a scathing letter detailing her reasons for leaving the paper.
Sullivan did not specify why he was leaving New York, but tweeted the “underlying reasons for the split are pretty self-evident.”
Sullivan, who had been a writer-at-large for New York since 2016, added he would adress “the broader questions” surrounding his departure in his final column Friday.
UConn student government leaders resign because they’re white
I feel that it is my duty to step down from my position to make space for BIPOC (black, indigineous and people of color) voices to truly rise and be heard. It is my responsibility to make space, not to create an echo.
Ose is also pressuring the remaining white members of the student government to resign, asking them to consider their “intent” in student leadership (to lead?) and whether they “truly” believe “they are making space for the voices that need to be heard right now” – the aforementioned BIPOCs.
President Joshua Crow didn’t go that far when he announced his own resignation prompted by white guilt two days later.
Bothell officer shot and killed after pursuit, 2nd officer wounded; suspect in custody
The police pursuit started around 9:40 p.m. when officers attempted to pull over a black sedan on State Route 522.
During a short pursuit, the suspect hit a man on a scooter before crashing into a median, according to Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team spokesperson Aaron Snell.
Bothell police tweeted just before 3:30 a.m. that the suspect was taken into custody without incident.
Police said the suspect was hiding on a rooftop near the scene when they were arrested. Several agencies joined the manhunt before the suspect was arrested.
St. Louis couple who defended their home had rifle seized, may face indictment
Mark McCloskey reacts to police seizure of rifle from his St. Louis home.
Politics:
Tucker: Imagining an America without police
Commentary/Opinion:
Less law enforcement means more crime.
Trump administration rescinds foreign students rule
The move comes after the policy announcement last week sparked a flurry of litigation, beginning with a suit brought by Harvard and MIT, followed by California’s public colleges and later a coalition of 17 states.
Judge Allison Burroughs, a federal district judge in Boston who was expected to preside over oral arguments in the Harvard-MIT case, made the surprise announcement at the beginning of the court proceedings Tuesday.
“I have been informed by the parties that they have come to a resolution,” Burroughs said, adding, “they will return to the status quo.”
California Assembly Passes Reparations Bill
Since the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014, politicians have started taking the idea of reparations seriously.
A federal bill establishing a commission to study the issue was introduced in 2019 and House Democrats hope Congress will vote on the legislation later this year, CNN reported.
The city of Evanston, Illinois, which is outside Chicago, created a first-in-the-nation program last year that uses taxes on legal marijuana sales to fund reparations (the city hopes to start making payments later this year or early next).
And Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said this week he supports studying the feasibility of reparations after being hesitant about them for years.
Biden, veep prospects back bill to study, craft proposals for slavery, discrimination reparations
California Democrat Rep. Karen Bass, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Florida Democrat Rep. Val Demings, have been floated as potential running mates for Biden.
Both lawmakers are co-sponsoring the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, which currently has 136 total Democratic co-sponsors in the House.
Last year, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams, another possible vice presidential pick for Biden, went further than calling for a formal study of reparations.
HEINEBACK: FROM DEMOCRAT TO TRUMP DEFENDER
Barbara Heineback was press officer to the wife of Democrat President Jimmy Carter and an advisor to Democrat President Bill Clinton.
But she warns: Donald Trump is being destroyed by vested interests in Washington and Black Lives Matter is a menace. Watch.
As Obama marched toward Iran nuclear deal, FBI worried Russia was aiding Tehran’s program
The undercover work on Iran by William Douglas Campbell was overshadowed by his effort to help the FBI successfully prove that an executive at Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company, was engaged in kickbacks, bribery and other crimes on U.S. soil and had compromised a U.S. uranium trucking company.
The FBI warned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other major federal agencies in August 2010 that Campbell had uncovered significant evidence of wrongdoing inside Rosatom’s Tenex agency.
But the Obama administration nonetheless proceeded to approve billions of dollars in nuclear fuel contracts and Moscow’s purchase of a large swath of U.S. uranium through a company known as Uranium One.
Campbell began providing evidence of the Russia-Iran nexus starting in 2010, including a memo he intercepted inside Rosatom written by an American adviser, Cheryl Moss Herman, who later would go to work in a senior nuclear energy policy job inside the Obama Energy Department.
World News:
Trump Lands Decisive Blow Against Chinese Communist Party
President Trump announced on Tuesday he signed a bill and executive order to hold China accountable for the “oppression” of the people of Hong Kong.
No other world leader has the courage to stand up to China like Trump.
US closes 5 military bases in Afghanistan as part of Taliban peace deal
The deal promised to withdraw all U.S. forces from the bases in the first 135 days, a milestone met on Tuesday, President Trump’s special representative to the talks, Zalmay Khalilzad, said.
“The U.S. has worked hard to carry out the 1st phase of its commitments under the Agreement, including to reduce forces & depart five bases. NATO troops have come down in proportional numbers,” Khalilzad said on Twitter.
Another major stipulation of the proposed peace deal brokered in Doha in February between the Taliban and the U.S. is the large-scale withdrawal of American troops in Afghanistan.
The U.S. slashed the number of troops in the region to 8,600, down from a high of over 100,000 in 2010.
Doctors find black worm in woman’s tonsil after throat pain
According to the case study published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the woman experienced five-day “left pharyngeal pain and irritation” after eating assorted sashimi.
The worm was molting, or shedding off, the outer cuticle, which revealed that it was in a fourth-stage larva of Pseudoterranova azarasi.
This uncommon nematode is said to infect dominantly in the stomach after a person consumes third-stage larvae in raw or undercooked marine fish. More than 700 cases have been reported in Japan, North Pacific countries, South America and the Netherlands, according to the study.
UK: Man Slashed to Death in Brutal Machete Attack in Wolverhampton, Attacker Remains at Large
Wolverhampton has been rocked by a spate of four stabbings over the past week alone, with two paramedics being stabbed on July 6 and another man being stabbed in the chest during an argument on July 12.
A local resident said that the attacks were a sign that the Chinese coronavirus “restrictions have been eased,” adding: “back to the usual insanity on the streets of Wolverhampton.”
Machetes — heavy long blades developed to cut through tropical undergrowth — have increasingly become the weapon of choice for criminals in the United Kingdom, where strict gun-control laws have been implemented.
A freedom of information request by the Daily Mail revealed that in November and December of 2019, police in Britain recorded 664 crimes with machetes, averaging 11 per day, or once every two hours.
Report: Hundreds of Nigerian Troops Fighting Boko Haram Resign
Nigerian soldiers have long suffered mass casualties at the hands of Boko Haram terrorists “due to [a] lack of a robust intelligence apparatus and also lack of equipment … further compounded by poor welfare for them and their families by the army,” according to the report.
In recent months, Boko Haram has staged a resurgence in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State, the group’s historic stronghold.
The terrorists have taken advantage of restrictions on movement during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic to launch strategic attacks on villages and state military units throughout the region.
German Police Hunt for ‘Forest Rambo’ After He Disarmed Four Officers Single-Handed
Nicknamed “Forest Rambo” by German media, Rausch has been on the run in the area around the town of Oppenau in Baden-Württemberg since Sunday after he managed to disarm and allegedly confiscate pistols from four police officers by himself.
Believed to be dangerous, Rausch is said to be armed with a bow and arrow, a knife, and several pistols.
He is also said to be equipped with camouflage clothing and night vision goggles, German tabloid Bild reports.
Mystery as Argentine sailors infected with virus after 35 days at sea
According to the ministry, 57 sailors, out of 61 crew members, were diagnosed with the virus after undergoing a new test.
However, all of the crew members had undergone 14 days of mandatory quarantine at a hotel in the city of Ushuaia. Prior to that, they had negative results, the ministry said in a statement.
The head of the infectious diseases department at Ushuaia Regional Hospital, Leandro Ballatore, said he believed this is a “case that escapes all description in publications, because an incubation period this long has not been described anywhere.”
“We cannot yet explain how the symptoms appeared,” said Ballatore.
Commentary/Opinion:
China Deep Dive: Recruitment Schools with Gordon Chang
Against The Law To Protect Your Property? Dave Rubin Responds | POLITICS | Rubin Report
Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks to Fox and Friends about Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who defended their property when protesters came onto their private property.
Mark McCloskey and his wife watched as Black Lives Matter protesters broke down a gate into their private neighborhood in St. Louis’s Central West End.
Is it possible that you will now be prevented from engaging in basic home defense in a lawful way? Isn’t self protection one of the reasons we have a second amendment?
Dave also discusses the cancel culture boycott of Goya foods.