Amarillo

Kurds 'may be releasing' IS prisoners in Syria to get US involved: Trump

President Donald Trump suggested Monday that Kurdish fighters may be releasing imprisoned Islamic State group jihadists to bait the United States into remaining involved in northeastern Syria. The Pentagon said Sunday Trump had ordered the withdrawal of up to 1,000 troops from northern Syria -- almost the entire ground force in the war-torn country -- amid an intensifying Turkish assault on Kurdish forces. Trump's decision last week to pull out of the area -- clearing the way for the Turkish incursion -- has been attacked at home as a betrayal of America's Kurdish allies, that risks triggering a resurgence of IS.

'It's got to stop': Superintendent condemns teacher's racist rant in school parking lot

A teacher at Drexel Hill Middle School in Pennsylvania has been placed on administrative leave after she used racial slurs in a viral Facebook video.

Hong Kong protesters and police clash, metro and shops targeted

Rallies in shopping malls on Hong Kong island and across the harbor in the Kowloon district began peacefully around midday with a few hundred people at each chanting "Free Hong Kong" and other slogans. Police said protesters threw bricks and petrol bombs at police, with one setting a police van alight in Kowloon's Sha Tin district. Police made several arrests and used tear gas to disperse protesters, saying they used "minimum force".

Gunman opens fire at church wedding ceremony, 2 people shot

A gunman opened fire at a wedding ceremony inside a New Hampshire church Saturday, shooting two people including the presiding bishop before guests tackled the shooter and pinned him to the ground until police arrived, authorities said. Dale Holloway, 37, has been charged with first degree assault for shooting Stanley Choate, 75, in the chest at the New England Pentecostal church, according to the state's attorney general office. A second person, Claire McMullen, 60, was shot in the arm.

The Army Wants Laser-Armed Drone Killers for its New 'Fighting Vehicle'

But will it happen?

Climate change researchers recommend banning all frequent flyer reward programs to cut carbon emissions by targeting jet-setters

A report commissioned by the Committee on Climate Change says that just 15% of the entire British population take 70% of all flights from the country.

Anthony Scaramucci is desperately trying to recruit Mitt Romney for a 2020 run

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is running for president again -- at least in Anthony Scaramucci's dreams.The famously short-lived White House communications director has since turned on the president who appointed him, and has publicly said he's trying to knock President Trump off the 2020 ticket. Now, it seems Scaramucci has decided on his dream candidate, and has launched a website and line of T-shirts to persuade him to run.Scaramucci started making his support for Romney known earlier this month, tweeting a poll that showed the 2012 GOP nominee beating the presumptive 2020 nominee in a hypothetical primary. He then revealed last week he'd launched Mitt2020.org, and on Sunday night, showed off that the site was offering "commit to Mitt" campaign T-shirts. They are being sold at $20.20 each to "test demand," and so far Scaramucci has seen an "overwhelming" response, he told ABC News.> You may be proud of your "Where's Hunter?" T-shirt...but we're really proud of ours...You see, we know where Mitt is...he's listening, he's hearing, he's seeing, he's reading and he's coming.... https://t.co/sCUTWW6IHA committomitt mitt2020 @MittRomney MittRomney pic.twitter.com/gpgTdL33UY> > -- Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) October 12, 2019While Romney hasn't even hinted at granting Scaramucci's wishes, the "Mitt Happens" shirt is sure to be a collector's item in a few years.

Pope Francis's main bodyguard resigns over a leak

Domenico Giani, the Vatican's longtime security chief and Pope Francis's main bodyguard, resigned on Monday over a leak of information from an investigation into alleged financial wrongdoing in the Vatican.

Jake Tapper Exposes Pompeo, Graham and Giuliani’s ‘Stunning’ Hypocrisy

It’s easy to forget just how different some of President Trump’s most loyal servants felt about oversight and impeachment when there were Democrats in the White House. On Sunday morning, CNN anchor Jake Tapper made sure his viewers remembered. In the final moments of his State of the Union broadcast this week, Tapper said that the White House’s outright refusal to “participate” in the House impeachment inquiry means that the president is “seemingly thumbing his nose at the very notion that the U.S. government was designed with three co-equal branches, specifically to offer checks and balances on each other.” “When President Obama was in the White House, the Republican-led House of Representatives conducted lots of oversight,” Tapper continued, “on the Fast and Furious scandal, on the Benghazi tragedy and more.” He said that anyone who covered or followed the Benghazi saga “may find it stunning to see Republican members of Congress trash-talking whistleblowers and inspectors general and trash-talking the oversight responsibilities of the House.” “After all, during the Obama years, in the trenches, pushing to conduct oversight were many of these same House Republicans,” Tapper said, “such as then Congressman Mike Pompeo from Kansas.” After playing a clip of Pompeo extolling the constitutional necessity of oversight, Tapper added, “Yes it is!” In response to him saying it was “unacceptable” for the Obama administration to ignore subpoenas, Tapper said, “It is unacceptable!”“One has to wonder what that congressman would make of the secretary of state, who has the same name, whose department is ordering State Department officials to ignore congressional subpoenas,” Tapper said, before moving onto Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who also reportedly urged Donald Trump Jr. to do the same.That is a “far cry,” Tapper said, from what Graham had to say when he was tasked with prosecuting the impeachment case against Bill Clinton. “The day that Richard Nixon failed to answer that subpoena is the day that he was subject to impeachment,” Graham said at the time. “Similarly, during the Clinton impeachment, Rudy Giuliani made it very clear where he stood on the matter of avoiding subpoenas,” Tapper said, revealing another clip from 1998 of Trump’s personal lawyer telling Charlie Rose that “the president is not above the law, is not able to avoid subpoenas.” “Now that Giuliani is enmeshed in the Ukraine scandal, however, Giuliani hasn’t even made it clear whether he is going to honor the congressional subpoena aimed at him,” Tapper added. “The arguments that Democratic presidents needed to comply with congressional oversight were correct. That’s how the system was set up.” Tapper concluded, “If you only apply constitutional standards to the other political party and not to your own, then those aren’t principles, they’re tactics.” Rachel Maddow Predicts Senate GOP May Just Find Its ‘Conscience’ and Impeach TrumpRead 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.

Hunter Biden Steps Down From Chinese Board as Trump Attacks

(Bloomberg) -- Hunter Biden is stepping down from the board of a Chinese-backed private equity company and promising to forgo all foreign work if his father, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, is elected president in 2020.After months of keeping a relatively low-profile as President Donald Trump leveled a barrage of unsubstantiated accusations of corruption at him, the younger Biden is publicly vowing to avoid any conflict of interest.According to a statement released on his behalf by his lawyer George Mesires, Biden said he’ll resign at the end of the month from the management company of a private equity fund that’s backed by Chinese state-owned entities. He also pledged that he wouldn’t work for any foreign-owned companies or serve on their boards during a potential Biden administration. He reiterated that he never discussed his business activities with his father.“Hunter always understood that his father would be guided, entirely and unequivocally, by established U.S. policy, regardless of its effects on Hunter’s professional interests,” the statement said. “He never anticipated the barrage of false charges against both him and his father by the President of the United States.”Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani have repeatedly claimed, without providing evidence, that Hunter Biden made millions of dollars from China while his father was vice president. They’ve also made unsubstantiated claims that Joe Biden used his position as the U.S. administration’s point person on Ukraine to help quash an investigation in 2016 into the owner of one of the country’s largest private gas companies where Hunter sat on the board.Earlier this month, Trump publicly called on China to investigate the Bidens. China’s foreign ministry rejected that notion, saying the country’s wouldn’t interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang declined to comment on the younger Biden’s board departure, calling it “a personal and commercial decision.” “Under a Biden Administration, Hunter will readily comply with any and all guidelines or standards a President Biden may issue to address purported conflicts of interest, or the appearance of such conflicts, including any restrictions related to overseas business interests,” the statement said. “He will continue to keep his father personally uninvolved in his business affairs.”Hunter Biden released the statement on his own and not at the direction of the former vice president, according to a person familiar with the matter.Joe Biden told reporters Sunday that he didn’t consult with his son about the decision to resign from the board, nor about the releasing the statement announcing the decision.“The statement my son put out today, I saw when he put it out,” Biden said after he spoke at a union forum in Altoona, Iowa. “I was told it was going to be put out. I did not consult with him.”Ukraine, ChinaThe statement aims to set the record straight on Biden’s past work in Ukraine and China, which Trump and Giuliani have fixated on as the 2020 campaign heats up. He served a five-year term on the board of Burisma, one of Ukraine’s biggest private gas companies, whose owner had been under investigation for alleged money laundering and abuse of power. The allegations predated his joining the board in April 2014. He stepped down earlier this year.Trump has alleged that Vice President Biden in 2016 threatened to withhold billions of dollars in loan guarantees unless Ukraine fired the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, as a way to quash the probe and help his son. But U.S. and Ukrainian officials said the investigation at the time was dormant and that Shokin was fired for the opposite reason: failing to fight corruption.“Despite extensive scrutiny, at no time has any law enforcement agency, either domestic or foreign, alleged that Hunter engaged in wrongdoing at any point during his five-year term,” the statement said.At the time he joined the Burisma board, Hunter was “of counsel” at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, a U.S. law firm, and had been advising the company on “its corporate reform initiatives,” it said. He urged Boies Schiller to hire Nardello & Co., a consulting firm specializing in investigations, to assess Burisma’s “corporate structure and governance practices.”Aleksander Kwasniewski, the former president of Poland, sat on the board of Burisma at the time and recruited Hunter as a non-executive director because of his advisory work for the gas company, the statement said. “At no time was Hunter in charge of the company’s legal affairs,” it said.Hunter Biden also sought to counter increasing Trump campaign attacks on his ties to China. He denied Trump’s repeated allegations that he procured $1.5 billion from China for a private equity fund after he flew on Air Force Two with his father in December 2013 to Beijing.He serves on the board of BHR (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Company, which was set up in 2013 to invest Chinese capital outside China. He previously acknowledged meeting with Jonathan Li, a Chinese banker and partner in the fund, during the 2013 trip but has said it was a social visit and they didn’t talk business.BHR has the backing of several Chinese state-owned companies. Trump’s claim that Hunter walked away with $1.5 billion from China appears to be based on a fund-raising target that BHR announced in 2014. But BHR never raised a discreet pool of capital, Mesires said, and instead raised money deal by deal. BHR now says it manages about $2.1 billion in investments.Biden denied he played a role in forming the company or having any equity in it while his father was vice president. The board position was unpaid, he said. After his father’s term ended in 2017, Biden bought 10% of the management company for about $420,000. He hasn’t made money from the venture to date, the statement said.He announced he’ll resign from the BHR board on Oct. 31. He didn’t comment on whether he would retain his equity stake, but his pledge to not do any foreign work under a Biden Administration indicates he would sell the stake if his father wins.Trump ChildrenBiden’s pledge to avoid foreign work if his father wins the White House sets him apart from Trump’s children, who have continued working with foreign business partners from Dubai to Indonesia and India while their father sits in the White House. After Trump won the presidency in 2016, he handed the running of the Trump Organization to his sons, Don Jr. and Eric, and said they wouldn’t do any new overseas deals.But they have continued to push the Trump Organization’s existing foreign deals, including visits to promote luxury resorts in Indonesia, condo sales in India and an expansion of their golf resort in Scotland.Trump has launched increasingly personal attacks on Hunter as Democrats in the Houses of Representatives ramp up their impeachment inquiry examining the president’s pressuring of Ukraine’s president to investigate what he claims is corruption by the Bidens in the country. At a rally in Minnesota this week, Trump lashed out at the Democratic front-runner’s son, taunting him over his personal struggles with drug use and his low profile during his father’s campaign.“Whatever happened to Hunter? Where the hell is he?” Trump bellowed at the crowd. “Let’s do another t-shirt. Where’s Hunter?” Soon after the rally, Trump’s 2020 campaign website started selling $25 t-shirts emblazoned with “Where’s Hunter?”Despite continuing to advance their own foreign business deals while their father is in the White House, the Trump sons have joined in on the attacks, accusing Hunter Biden of using his family name for personal gain while his father was vice president.“At the VERY LEAST, there’s an appearance of impropriety,” Don Jr. tweeted.At the rally in Minneapolis, Eric Trump attacked Hunter, whipping up the crowd with chants of “Lock him up,” a replay of his father’s familiar campaign stump speech targeting Hillary Clinton in 2016.Joe Biden has defended his son and vowed to make him a visible part of his campaign. “He’s a fine man. He’s been through hell,” Biden told the Reno Gazette Journal earlier this month. “I’m also confident the American people know me, and they know my son.”(Updates with Chinese comment in seventh paragraph)\--With assistance from Tyler Pager, Jennifer Epstein and April Ma.To contact the reporter on this story: Stephanie Baker in London at stebaker@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Disney Skyliner reopens with modified hours after stranding passengers last week

Disney's Skyliner is back in action after the new aerial cable car system stranded passengers for hours the night of Oct. 5.

Police officer stabbed in the neck in latest Hong Kong clashes

A Hong Kong police officer was stabbed in the neck on Sunday in one of the worst acts of violence against the authorities during the 19th straight weekend of civil unrest in the global financial hub. Graphic footage emerged of the policeman being stabbed in the neck from behind with a sharp object as his team retreated towards Kwun Tong metro station.  The police confirmed that two people had been arrested at the scene and the officer had been transferred to hospital “in a conscious state” and was stable.  A police source said that the officer had sustained a 3cm cut to his neck, and while it was still hard to confirm the extent of his injuries, that the attack was “one of the worst” when seen “in terms of malice, in terms of an attempt to kill the officer.”  Flash mob-style protests had initially peacefully in multiple locations with small groups of a few hundred people chanting “Free Hong Kong” slogans but soon developed into chaotic clashes with the riot police as more radical black-clad activists trashed shops and erected barricades on busy roads.     Anti-government protesters in Tai Po, Hong Kong Credit: Ammar Awad/Reuters Dozens were reportedly injured, numerous arrests were made and tear gas was deployed to disperse protesters, although the police said “minimum force” was used. As night fell, about 20 Molotov cocktails were thrown at a police station in Mongkok in Kowloon.  Earlier in the day, protesters played a game of cat-and-mouse with riot officers in Mongkok’s busy shopping district – blocking roads with metal railings and bamboo sticks, only to disappear into a warren of side streets when police vans arrived to clear the way. The Telegraph witnessed at least two rough arrests and an injured officer on the ground on the main thoroughfare of Nathan Road. One bystander claimed that a young man had been detained simply for being alone in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Crowds of residents surrounded the police, hurling insults and accusing them of being “mafia,” jeering as the vans pulled away and giving officers the finger. Video footage of an officer being floored by a protester’s flying kick during another attempted arrest in the area went viral. Elsewhere, the ongoing anti-government protests, which began in opposition to a controversial extradition bill but have now widened into an appeal for universal suffrage and greater democracy, played out more peacefully.  Alan Fung, 62, is taking part in a 48-hour sit-in outside the main police station on Hong Kong island Credit: Michael Zhang On Saturday night, pro-democracy demonstrators performed the exhausting feat of hauling a four-metre statue called “Lady Liberty” to the top of the Lion Rock, a 495-metre peak overlooking Kowloon’s skyscrapers. The statue, which has become one of the many symbols of the movement, was left watching over the city wearing a gas mask, protective goggles and a helmet, proclaiming the slogan "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times". Meanwhile, as younger protesters tried to taunt and out-run the police, the older generation were staging their own rebellion.  About 100 “silver hair” protesters gathered for a 48-hour sit-in outside the main police headquarters in Wan Chai on Hong Kong island this weekend, chanting anti-government slogans and making protest banners. A masked old man took out a black marker pen and wrote insults against the police on the barriers surrounding the station before running away giggling.  About 100 older Hong Kong citizens are staging a "silver hair" rally this weekend Credit: Michael Zhang The group’s presence was a sign of the city’s continuing widespread anger over the government’s handling of the worst political crisis in decades. Although the summer’s mass rallies have largely been led by the young, support for their pro-democracy demands crosses generations.   “We want to say we are the silver haired coming together. We are old but we want to support the younger people. We can’t go to the frontlines but we are in the back to support them,” said Mr Yip, 73, who had come with his 70-year-old wife and two small picnic stools. “I support democracy, I hate the government now.”  Alan Fung, 62, was one of about a dozen pensioners who had braved the humidity as they huddled through the night under a bridge next to the station.  He admitted that he had not got much sleep but said he wanted to camp outside to “protect the young people” and prevent more clashes in the area with the police. “We don’t want it to be dangerous for them again,” he said.  “If we are noisy the government will see that it’s not just the young people who support the campaign but we are too.”

British paedophile who operated in Malaysia, Cambodia found dead in prison

One of Britain's most prolific child sex offenders, Richard Huckle, has died three years into a life sentence for abusing Malaysian and Cambodian children, Britain's Ministry of Justice said on Monday, with media saying he had been stabbed to death. Huckle, 33, who abused children and babies during a nine year period, was sentenced to life in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to 71 offences. Dubbed the country's worst paedophile by Britain's media, he was found stabbed to death in prison on Sunday after being attacked with a makeshift knife, the BBC reported.

South Korean pop star Sulli found dead at her home

South Korean pop star and actress Sulli was found dead at her home south of Seoul on Monday, police said. The 25-year-old was found after her manager went to her home in Seongnam because she didn't answer phone calls for hours, said Kim Seong-tae, an official from the Seongnam Sujeong Police Department. "The investigation is ongoing and we won't make presumptions about the cause of death," said Kim, adding that security camera footage at Sulli's home showed no signs of an intrusion.

Mobile phones back in Indian Kashmir, but internet still down

Mobile phone networks were restored in Indian Kashmir on Monday after a 72-day blackout, authorities said, but the internet remains off-limits to the region's seven million-plus people. India cut access to mobile networks in the restive Kashmir Valley in early August citing security concerns as it scrapped the region's semi-autonomous status and imposed a lockdown. The easing on Monday covers around four million post-paid mobile phone contracts, but only for calls and text messages.

Meet the Massive Ordnance Penetrator: The Air Force's Newest Bunker Buster Bomb

Huge and very powerful.

Booker Scolds Buttigieg for Referring to Gun ‘Buybacks’ as ‘Confiscation’: ‘Doing the NRA’s Work for Them’

Senator Cory Booker (D., N.J.) admonished fellow presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Monday for referring to a mandatory gun buyback proposal as "confiscation" on the grounds that doing so propagates a right-wing talking point."Calling buyback programs 'confiscation' is doing the NRA's work for them," wrote Booker on Twitter, "and they don't need our help."Buttigieg insisted on referring to buybacks as "confiscation" in an interview on the Snapchat show Good Luck America. Previously, the South Bend, Indiana Mayor shied away from such comparisons."As a policy, it’s had mixed results," said Buttigieg during an October 2 interview. "It’s a healthy debate to have, but we’ve got to do something now.”O'Rourke subsequently condemned Buttigieg's comments, saying Buttigieg was "afraid of doing the right thing" by supporting mandatory buybacks."[O'Rourke] needs to pick a fight in order to stay relevant," Buttigieg commented on Good Luck America.O'Rourke has previously pushed the issue of mandatory gun buybacks and outright confiscation, declaring at the third Democratic primary debate in September that he supports taking away certain semi-automatic rifles from their legal owners.“Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow it to be used against a fellow American anymore,” O'Rourke said at the time.Buttigieg is currently polling at five percent while O'Rourke stands at just 1.8 percent. The former Texas congressman has struggled to gain more than two percent of the vote, but has captured attention for radical policy proposals on gun rights and issues of church and state.During a CNN Townhall on October 11, O'Rourke called for institutions that don't support same sex marriage, such as churches, religious schools and charities, to be stripped of their tax-exempt status.

Trump has delivered what Russia wants in Syria — at zero cost — and 'Putin likely can't believe his luck'

Vladimir Putin "didn't even have to try to make it happen," a NATO official told us. "Small wonder he'd interfere on Trump's side in an election."

States are cutting university budgets. Taxpayers aren't interested in funding campus kooks

University campuses have abandoned their central mission in their pursuit of utopia. The American public has had enough.

Special Report: The hunt for Asia's El Chapo

He is Asia’s most-wanted man. Tse Chi Lop, a Canadian national born in China, is suspected of leading a vast multinational drug trafficking syndicate formed out of an alliance of five of Asia’s triad groups, according to law enforcement officials. The syndicate, law enforcers believe, is funneling tonnes of methamphetamine, heroin and ketamine to at least a dozen countries from Japan in North Asia to New Zealand in the South Pacific.

Japan storm victims felt worst was over, then floods came

After the worst of Typhoon Hagibis passed over this town north of Tokyo, Kazuo Saito made sure there was no water outside his house and went to bed. The storm, which made landfall in the Tokyo region late Saturday, had dumped record amounts of rain that caused rivers to overflow their banks, some of them damaged. It turned many neighborhoods in Kawagoe into swamps.

Polls show a 17-point swing toward impeaching Trump

As of three weeks ago, a majority of Americans, 51.1 percent, on average, opposed impeaching President Trump, with only 40 percent supporting it. But the results came before the Ukraine scandal snowballed. As of today, opposition to impeachment has plummeted 7 percentage points (to 44 percent) and support has climbed nearly 10 points (to 49.8 percent), according to FiveThirtyEight’s preliminary polling tracker.

In 1986, a Russian Submarine with 27 Nuclear Missiles Sank (And Exploded)

"Seawater combined with missile fuel to produce heat and toxic gases. Despite a crewman venting the tube, an explosion erupted in the silo, ejecting the missile and its warheads into the sea."

Multiple arrests in Hong Kong as "flashmob" protests hit pro-Bejing targets

Riot police clashed with anti-government protesters across Hong Kong Sunday as masked activists vandalised businesses deemed sympathetic to Beijing in another weekend of chaos in the financial hub. Local television networks also broadcast footage of a man beaten bloody by protesters after they found a baton in his bag and suspected him of being an undercover officer. During cat-and-mouse encounters on Sunday officers made dozens of arrests, but there were fewer protesters than have taken to the streets more recently during the four-month long protest movement.

Police Respond to Reports of Mall Shooting in Florida, Confirm 1 Person Injured

Authorities have not yet identified the circumstances which led to the shooting

U.S. ‘Withdraws’ as Kurds Strike Deal to Let Assad’s Forces Into Region

Khalil Ashawi/ReutersAmid a Turkish assault, the Kurds, or Syrian Democratic Forces, have struck a deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, that will bring forces loyal to Assad back into areas that have been under Kurdish control for years.“An agreement has been reached with the Syrian government—whose duty it is to protect the country’s borders and preserve Syrian sovereignty—for the Syrian Army to enter and deploy along the Syrian-Turkish border to help the SDF stop this aggression [by Turkey],” the Kurds said in a statement.Once the agreement was made Sunday night, Syrian Assad troops began moving into towns near the border with Turkey where Turkish forces have been encroaching since President Trump announced that he was withdrawing American forces from the region earlier this week.The agreement appears to undermine any expectation that United States might continue to assist the Kurds—Washington’s allies against ISIS—as they are attacked by Turkey. In the aftermath of Trump’s announcement, with a Turkish invasion carried out just days later, American forces were unable to carry out a move of about 60 “high value” ISIS detainees out of wartime prisons run by the Kurds, The New York Times reports. The chaos also made way for hundreds of ISIS prisoners on Sunday to escape from a low-security detention camp in the area.In the latest surge of anti-war rhetoric from the Trump administration, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Sunday that the U.S. is launching a “deliberate withdrawal” of American forces from northern Syria but refused to say how long it will take.“We want to conduct it safely and quickly as possible,” Esper told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning, adding, “I’m not prepared to put a timeline on it, but that’s our general game plan.” Two knowledgeable U.S. officials told The Daily Beast that the troops are just withdrawing further away from the advance of Turkish forces massacring the Syrian Kurds whom America relied upon to destroy the so-called Islamic State’s caliphate.There are currently 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria. A knowledgeable U.S. official said hundreds of those troops, without further specificity, will leave Syria for elsewhere in the Mideast. Following a pullout from two northern Syrian observation posts last week, the U.S. will now retreat farther away from the area Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has invaded.Esper said Trump gave the withdrawal order because Turkish forces are pushing further south into Syria and Kurdish forces had been trying to cut a deal with Syria and Russia to counter-attack.“We have American forces likely caught between two opposing advancing armies, and it’s a very untenable situation,” he said.But as Esper made clear, the order affects only the north and there will still be American forces in the rest of Syria even as Trump—who separately has ordered about 14,000 U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf region over the past six months—rails against the disastrous, bloody, and interminable U.S. misadventure in the Middle East over the past generation.A U.S. official told CNN that U.S. policy “has failed” and that the campaign in Syria to defeat ISIS is “over for now,” giving the terrorist group “a second lease on life with nearly 100,000 [people] who will re-join their jihad.” The mixed messaging by the Trump administration is making it difficult for even his most ardent supporters to help unravel his foreign policy on Syria as it spins out of control. Just days after Trump announced the withdrawal of American troops from northern Syria where they have been providing weapons and cover to allied Kurdish fighters on the border between Turkey and Syria, Turkey began a military incursion that has sent the region into a level of chaos it has not seen in recent years.The Daily Beast first reported Friday that claims made by the Trump administration that U.S. troops had been withdrawn were false. “We are out of there. We’ve been out of there for a while,” Trump said Wednesday. “No soldiers whatsoever.” Two officials told The Daily Beast that in fact the U.S. military had only pulled back from—not completely out of—northern Syria. They had simply abandoned two small observation posts from which they supported Kurdish allies in the fight against ISIS fighters. Trump Says U.S. Troops Have Quit Syria. It’s Not True.Trump then tweeted that he had been talking with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–SC), who had been highly critical of Trump’s decision to remove troops. “Pray for our Kurdish allies who have been shamelessly abandoned by the Trump administration. This move ensures the reemergence of ISIS,” Graham warned Wednesday. “I urge President Trump to change course while there is still time by going back to the safe zone concept that was working.” Graham later tweeted that any sanctions had to be serious. “The conditional sanctions announced today will be viewed by Turkey as a tepid response and will embolden Erdogan even more,” Graham tweeted Friday. “The Turkish government needs to know Congress will take a different path—passing crippling sanctions in a bipartisan fashion.”But in a Sunday morning tweet, the president wrote that he was working with Graham “and many members of Congress, including Democrats, about imposing powerful Sanctions on Turkey.”He then added: “Treasury is ready to go, additional legislation may be sought. There is great consensus on this. Turkey has asked that it not be done. Stay tuned!”Turkey has warned that any threats of sanctions would be met with the release of millions of refugees along the border between Turkey and Syria into Europe. Trump told reporters at the White House earlier this week that such a possibility did not concern him. “Well they’re going to be escaping to Europe,” he said. “That’s where they want to go, they want to go back to their homes.”On Sunday, the Associated Press reported that up to 700 ISIS sympathizers did escape the Ain Eissa camp, which holds up 12,000 people caught up in years of unrest. Most of those who escaped are ISIS brides and children, but officials warn that they could be part of a resurgence of the so-called Islamic state. Several known ISIS fighters were also spotted fighting in the current conflict, according to CNN, which reported that at least five fighters had escaped the notorious Ghuwairan prison due to heavy shelling in the area. During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)—who has been one of the president’s most vocal defenders on the Syria decision—called it a “messy, complicated situation” while saying the president was right to move soldiers out of the way because “Turkey was coming in one way or another.” When moderator Chuck Todd noted that U.S. soldiers near the Turkish border were serving as a deterrent to an Erdogan invasion, Paul retorted “they were until they weren’t.”Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin repeated Paul’s line that this is a “complicated situation” when asked on ABC’s This Week why the administration hasn’t imposed sanctions on Turkey yet.“We are ready to go on a moment’s notice to put on sanctions,” Mnuchin said. “As I said, these sanctions could be starting small. They could be maximum pressure which would destroy the Turkish economy. The president is very focused on this. He’s offered to mediate the situation.”Mnunchin also pushed back on criticism from those within the president’s own party. In response to Graham and others saying sanctions would be a tepid reaction to Turkey, Mnuchin stated that this is a “multi-step process” and the administration needs to make sure “we have the proper authorizations.” The treasury chief, meanwhile, was asked what the president was talking about when he criticized the Kurds for not storming the beaches at Normandy alongside U.S. troops. Mnuchin asserted Trump’s analogy was that he was pushing back on everyone “saying the Kurds are these long-standing allies” and that our role in Syria “was not to defend the Kurds.”On CNN’s State of the Union, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said that while he wished the president’s decision had “been different,” he feels that we tend to “oversimplify the complicated relationships” in the region. He went on to say this wasn’t a “binary choice” as both the Turks and Kurds are considered allies. As for whether the U.S. was retreating from the area and allowing the Turks to invade northern Syria, Cramer said “we can’t be in the middle of every skirmish in the neighborhood.”House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel (D-NY), meanwhile, told Meet the Press that while he is working on a bipartisan bill that will slap sanctions on Turkey and condemn the president’s policy as it relates to the Kurds, he acknowledges that “it’s not going to stop” the Turks now. Asked whether it’s too late to do anything at this point, Engel seemed to resign himself to that notion.“We could mitigate the damage,” he told Todd. “Of course, it’s spiraling quickly. And what’s happened, of course, is a lot of ISIS prisoners, we’ve gotten reports that they have been released or they’ve escaped and so this is just the tip of the iceberg. And if we think this is terrible, I predict we will have many, many more days, weeks, and months of terrible things like this.”Elsewhere on Meet the Press, former secretary of defense James Mattis warned that ISIS could see a revival in the area, noting the Syrian Democratic Forces were the ones who largely fought the terror group in Syria. If we don’t keep pressure on, ISIS will resurge,” Mattis said. “It’s absolutely a given that they will come back.”During his State of the Union interview, South Bend Mayor and Afghanistan War veteran Pete Buttigieg insisted Trump was “systematically destroying American allies and American values.”“What’s even more disturbing to me as a veteran is hearing from soldiers who feel they have lost their honor over this, who feel they are unable to look in the eye [of] allies who put their lives on line to fight with us,” he added. “If you take away a soldier’s honor, you might as well go after their body armor next. That is what the commander-in-chief is doing right now.”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.

China Built a Flying Saucer

The UFO is still on the ground—for now.

Son of sheriff who called immigrants ‘drunks’ at White House event arrested for public intoxication

The son of a Texas sheriff who used a White House press conference to describe immigrant offenders as “drunks” likely to repeatedly break the law has been arrested for public intoxication.Sergei Waybourn, 24, faces a count of indecent exposure as well as public drunkenness just days after his father, Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn, was criticised for the comments.

Russia's submarines are getting harder to find, and the Navy is sending more people to keep an eye on them

Russian naval activity around Europe is a growing concern, and the US Navy is reactivating command units to help manage its own forces in the region.

A Real Threat: Why Russia's Air Force Should Be Taken Seriously

And why countries love to buy them.

Big changes to grueling Special Forces course draw scrutiny

The overnight land navigation test is just one hurdle in the grueling, monthslong course to join the Army's elite Special Forces, and using the light violates the rules. "We got a light!" barks an Army instructor from the front seat of his truck as he patrols the woods. For the nearly 200 candidates scrambling through Hoffman Forest at Camp Mackall, the struggle to become a Green Beret is real.

Canadian Snowbird plane crashes during Atlanta air show

The remaining festivities associated with the annual air show were cancelled following the crash

Regime returns to northeast Syria to halt Turkey assault on Kurds

The Syrian regime deployed troops near the Turkish border and entered a key city Monday to contain Ankara's deadly offensive against the Kurds, stepping in for US forces due to begin a controversial withdrawal. The army has kept a presence in Kurdish-controlled Qamishli and Hasakeh in Syria's northeast since the 2011 outbreak of the country's war, and deployed a limited number of troops around the strategic city of Manbij last year at the request of Kurdish forces.

A Relationship With Jeffrey Epstein That Bill Gates Now 'Regrets'

Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who committed suicide in jail, managed to lure an astonishing array of rich, powerful and famous men into his orbit.There were billionaires (Leslie Wexner and Leon Black), politicians (Bill Clinton and Bill Richardson), Nobel laureates (Murray Gell-Mann and Frank Wilczek) and even royals (Prince Andrew).Few, though, compared in prestige and power to the world's second-richest person, a brilliant and intensely private luminary: Bill Gates. And unlike many others, Gates started the relationship after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, whose $100 billion-plus fortune has endowed the world's largest charitable organization, has done his best to minimize his connections to Epstein. "I didn't have any business relationship or friendship with him," he told The Wall Street Journal last month.In fact, beginning in 2011, Gates met with Epstein on numerous occasions -- including at least three times at Epstein's palatial Manhattan town house, and at least once staying late into the night, according to interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with the relationship, as well as documents reviewed by The New York Times.Employees of Gates' foundation also paid multiple visits to Epstein's mansion. And Epstein spoke with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and JPMorgan Chase about a proposed multibillion-dollar charitable fund -- an arrangement that had the potential to generate enormous fees for Epstein."His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me," Gates emailed colleagues in 2011, after his first get-together with Epstein.Bridgitt Arnold, a spokeswoman for Gates, said he "was referring only to the unique decor of the Epstein residence -- and Epstein's habit of spontaneously bringing acquaintances in to meet Mr. Gates.""It was in no way meant to convey a sense of interest or approval," she said.Over and over, Epstein managed to cultivate close relationships with some of the world's most powerful men. He lured them with the whiff of money and the proximity to other powerful, famous or wealthy people -- so much so that many looked past his reputation for sexual misconduct. And the more people he drew into his circle, the easier it was for him to attract others.Gates and the $51 billion Gates Foundation have championed the well-being of young girls. By the time Gates and Epstein first met, Epstein had served jail time for soliciting prostitution from a minor and was required to register as a sex offender.Arnold said that "high-profile people" had introduced Gates and Epstein and that they had met multiple times to discuss philanthropy."Bill Gates regrets ever meeting with Epstein and recognizes it was an error in judgment to do so," Arnold said. "Gates recognizes that entertaining Epstein's ideas related to philanthropy gave Epstein an undeserved platform that was at odds with Gates' personal values and the values of his foundation."The First MeetingTwo members of Gates' inner circle -- Boris Nikolic and Melanie Walker -- were close to Epstein and at times functioned as intermediaries between the two men.Walker met Epstein in 1992, six months after graduating from the University of Texas. Epstein, who was an adviser to Wexner, the owner of Victoria's Secret, told Walker that he could land her an audition for a modeling job there, according to Walker. She later moved to New York and stayed in a Manhattan apartment building that Epstein owned. After she graduated from medical school, she said, Epstein hired her as a science adviser in 1998.Walker later met Steven Sinofsky, a senior executive at Microsoft who became president of its Windows division, and moved to Seattle to be with him. In 2006, she joined the Gates Foundation with the title of senior program officer.At the foundation, Walker met and befriended Nikolic, a native of what is now Croatia and a former fellow at Harvard Medical School who was the foundation's science adviser. Nikolic and Gates frequently traveled and socialized together.Walker, who had remained in close touch with Epstein, introduced him to Nikolic, and the men became friendly.Epstein and Gates first met face to face on the evening of Jan. 31, 2011, at Epstein's town house on the Upper East Side. They were joined by Dr. Eva Andersson-Dubin, a former Miss Sweden whom Epstein had once dated, and her 15-year-old daughter. (Andersson-Dubin's husband, hedge fund billionaire Glenn Dubin, was a friend and business associate of Epstein's. The Dubins declined to comment.)The gathering started at 8 p.m. and lasted several hours, according to Arnold, Gates' spokeswoman. Epstein subsequently boasted about the meeting in emails to friends and associates. "Bill's great," he wrote in one, reviewed by the Times.Gates, in turn, praised Epstein's charm and intelligence. Emailing colleagues the next day, he said: "A very attractive Swedish woman and her daughter dropped by and I ended up staying there quite late."Gates soon saw Epstein again. At a TED conference in Long Beach, California, attendees spotted the two men engaged in private conversation.Later that spring, on May 3, 2011, Gates again visited Epstein at his New York mansion, according to emails about the meeting and a photograph reviewed by the Times.The photo, taken in Epstein's marble-clad entrance hall, shows a beaming Epstein -- in blue-and-gold slippers and a fleece decorated with an American flag -- flanked by luminaries. On his right: James Staley, at the time a senior JPMorgan executive, and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. On his left: Nikolic and Gates, smiling and wearing gray slacks and a navy sweater.A Vast Charitable FundAround that time, the Gates Foundation and JPMorgan were teaming up to create the Global Health Investment Fund. Its goal was to provide "individual and institutional investors the opportunity to finance late-stage global health technologies that have the potential to save millions of lives in low-income countries."As the details of the fund were being hammered out, Staley told his JPMorgan colleagues that Epstein wanted to be brought into the discussions, according to two people familiar with the talks. Epstein was an important JPMorgan customer, holding millions of dollars in accounts at the bank and referring a procession of wealthy individuals to become clients of the company.Epstein pitched an idea for a separate charitable fund to JPMorgan officials, including Staley, and to Gates' adviser Nikolic. He envisioned a vast fund, seeded with the Gates Foundation's money, that would focus on health projects around the world, according to five people involved in or briefed on the talks, including current and former Gates Foundation and JPMorgan employees. In addition to the Gates money, Epstein planned to round up donations from his wealthy friends and, hopefully, from JPMorgan's richest clients.Epstein thought he could personally benefit. He circulated a four-page proposal that included a suggestion that he be paid 0.3% of whatever money he raised, according to one person who saw the proposal. If Epstein had raised $10 billion, for example, that would have amounted to $30 million in fees.Arnold said Gates and the foundation had been unaware that Epstein had been seeking any fee. She said Epstein "did propose to Bill Gates and then foundation officials ideas that he promised would unleash hundreds of billions for global health-related work."In late 2011, at Gates' instruction, the foundation sent a team to Epstein's town house to have a preliminary talk about philanthropic fundraising, according to three people who were there. Epstein told his guests that if they searched his name on the internet they might conclude he was a bad person but that what he had done -- soliciting prostitution from an underage girl -- was no worse than "stealing a bagel," two of the people said.Some of the Gates Foundation employees said they had been unaware of Epstein's criminal record and had been shocked to learn that the foundation was working with a sex offender. They worried that it could seriously damage the foundation's reputation.In early 2012, another Gates Foundation team met Epstein at his mansion. He claimed that he had access to trillions of dollars of his clients' money that he could put in the proposed charitable fund -- a figure so preposterous that it left his visitors doubting Epstein's credibility.Flying to FloridaGates and Epstein kept seeing each other. Arnold would not say how many times the two had met.In March 2013, Gates flew on Epstein's Gulfstream plane from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to Palm Beach, Florida, according to a flight manifest. Arnold said Gates -- who has his own $40 million jet -- hadn't been aware it was Epstein's plane.Six months later, Nikolic and Gates were in New York for a meeting related to Schrodinger, a pharmaceutical software company in which Gates had a large investment. On that trip, Epstein and Gates met for dinner and discussed the Gates Foundation and philanthropy, Arnold said.In October 2014, Gates donated $2 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. University officials described the gift in internal emails as having been "directed" by Epstein. Arnold said, "There was no intention, nor explicit ask, for the funding to be controlled in any manner by Epstein."Soon after, the relationship between Epstein and Gates appears to have cooled. The charitable fund that had been discussed with the Gates Foundation never materialized. Epstein complained to an acquaintance at the end of 2014 that Gates had stopped talking to him, according to a person familiar with the discussion.The relationship, however, wasn't entirely severed. At least two senior Gates Foundation officials maintained contacts with Epstein until late 2017, according to former foundation employees. Arnold said the foundation was not aware of any such contact."Over time, Gates and his team realized Epstein's capabilities and ideas were not legitimate and all contact with Epstein was discontinued," she said.Days before Epstein hanged himself in a Manhattan jail cell on Aug. 10, he amended his will and named Nikolic as a fallback executor in the event that one of the two primary executors was unable to serve. (Nikolic has declined in court proceedings to serve as executor.)Nikolic, who is now running a venture capital firm with Gates as one of his investors, said he was "shocked" to be named in Epstein's will. He said in a statement to the Times: "I deeply regret ever meeting Mr. Epstein."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company

Portland antifa activist killed in hit and run, police say

City’s antifascist group says death of Sean D Kealiher, 23, was not ‘related to fascist activity’ and police did not specify a motiveThe Multnomah county medical examiner determined the cause of death to be homicide, caused by blunt force trauma. Photograph: Jonathan Bachman/ReutersA Portland antifascist activist was killed in the early hours of Saturday in an apparent hit-and-run near Cider Riot, a cidery and taproom popular with the city’s anarchist left that has been the scene of conflict with rightwing groups. According to the Portland police bureau, the car involved was fired upon and crashed into a nearby building. Its occupants fled the scene. Police said in a statement that the 23-year-old victim, Sean D Kealiher, was taken to a local hospital by associates. The Multnomah county medical examiner determined the cause of death to be homicide, caused by blunt force trauma. Police said homicide squad detectives would investigate and called on witnesses to come forward. Kealiher was a prominent participant in antifascist and anti-Trump protests in Portland, speaking and marching in opposition to events held by rightwing groups. His activities occasionally attracted the attention of rightwing bloggers and social media personalities. Rose City Antifa, the city’s longest-standing antifascist group, said in a tweet addressing Kealiher’s death that it “was not related to fascist activity”. Police did not specify a motive. Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler ,and the Oregon Democratic party, outside whose building the incident happened, expressed condolences on Twitter. Memorial tributes were laid at the site. Six men, including the Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson, are awaiting trial on charges arising from a violent incident at Cider Riot on 1 May. In an affidavit in support of Gibson’s arrest warrant, police officer Brad Kalbaugh described the group approaching Cider Riot “in an effort clearly designed to provoke a physical confrontation”. Multiple videos of that incident show punches, thrown drinks and pepper spray being exchanged. One of the men awaiting trial, Ian Kramer, is alleged to have struck a woman with a baton, fracturing her vertebra. More video appears to show members of the group planning violence ahead of the brawl. Gibson and the other men are charged with riot. Some face felony assault charges.Cider Riot’s owner, Abram Goldman-Armstrong, has commenced a $1m lawsuit against Gibson and several others. Goldman-Armstrong’s lawyer, Juan Chavez, says his client has been subject to “homophobic and antisemitic” harassment since the suit was filed.

California becomes first state to ban fur

California has become the first U.S. state to ban the sale and manufacture of new fur products. On Saturday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law to prohibit residents from making or selling items such as clothing, shoes or handbags made of fur.

With Hypersonic Missiles, Israel's F-35s Are Upping The Ante In Syria

Iran has taken notice.

Jayme Closs: 1 year after abduction, I'm feeling stronger

The Wisconsin girl whose parents were fatally shot before she was kidnapped and held captive for 88 days before escaping from her abductor said she's feeling stronger every day and is thankful for the kindness and concern expressed to her from people all over the country in the year after the crime. Jayme Closs issued a statement Monday, a day before the one-year anniversary of the fatal shootings and abduction at her home near Barron in northwest Wisconsin. Closs said she is getting back to the activities she enjoys and loves hanging out with her friends.

Is San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer a Model for the Struggling California GOP?

From Ted Cruz’s sneering at “New York values” to the gratuitous scorn President Trump heaped on the city of Baltimore, Republicans seem to have tacitly accepted that they will never again be able to compete in urban centers. But at least one major city still has a viable, even thriving, Republican administration: San Diego, the eighth-largest urban area in America, whose mayor, Kevin Faulconer, has enjoyed two popular and successful terms in city hall despite a constituency that is actually less red than deep-blue California as a whole.In an interview, Faulconer attributes his ability to win elections in a city where only 22 percent of voters are registered Republicans to a political brand that is “not about partisanship, but leadership.” This may sound like a boilerplate talking point, but it contains a lesson that Republicans seeking a toehold in blue states could learn from: Mayors are simply not subject to the same partisan pressures as legislators and other elected officials. If they eschew divisive, bomb-throwing bombast in favor of a focus on competent, productive governance, voters will reward them.Faulconer’s rise and tenure is a case study in this dynamic. He was elected in the wake of the resignation of scandal-ridden Democratic mayor Bob Filner, with San Diego’s finances in deplorable shape. He promised to fix the city budget and did, establishing a low-key, technocratic image that helped him easily win his bid for a full term. It helped that he made an effort to reach out to voters who wouldn’t typically vote for a Republican. His campaign headquarters was located in a historically black city neighborhood, and he stressed throughout our interview how important that physical presence was in connecting with local residents. The result was that people knew him not “as a Republican,” he said, but as a competent mayor.If Faulconer’s success were just a matter of personal temperament and a concerted effort to transcend party labels, other California Republicans might be forgiven for assuming he doesn’t have much to teach the struggling state party. But as he closes out his second term, Faulconer has zeroed in on an issue that the state’s overwhelmingly Democratic leadership has failed to address: the homelessness crisis. Though the issue is not his only his policy focus, he trumpets it as one that Republicans should zero in on.At the recent California Republican party convention in Palm Springs, Faulconer devoted the bulk of his keynote address to discussing the explosion in the state’s homeless population. It is, he said, “not merely an issue in California, but the issue,” one that offers California Republicans a golden chance to present themselves as a viable alternative to their Democratic rivals. In our interview, he highlighted San Diego’s recent efforts to grapple with the crisis. Most crucially, he has committed the city to providing enough shelter beds for every member of its homeless population, which no other comparably large city on the West Coast is even close to doing. San Diego can now offer any persons living on the street housing, and compel them to enter it if they refuse. It’s a real accomplishment, though he is quick to caution that “housing first” cannot become “housing only.” If the goal is to keep people off the streets long-term, he argues, it is just as important for shelter services to connect homeless people with treatment and counseling as it is to give them a place to stay.The results of Faulconer’s fight against homelessness in San Diego have been mixed. Expansion of shelters, greater use of law enforcement against tent encampments, and increased spending on services have led to a 6 percent decrease in the homeless population, which he concedes is far from a massive improvement. But San Diego is the only major West Coast city to have seen any kind of decrease in homelessness, and it is one of the few with a clear plan to address the crisis.It remains to be seen what kind of impact Faulconer’s singular success — there are a smattering of other Republican mayors statewide, but the next-largest California city with a Republican administration is Fresno, just over a third the size of San Diego — will have on the state party. In our interview, he reiterated a long-standing refusal to announce plans for higher office, and the upcoming mayoral race in San Diego won’t feature a Republican candidate. But he is adamant that the state party could learn from his experience in office.In his convention keynote, he spoke about the need for a California Republican party clearly differentiated from the national party. This is sound advice. A state with as many acute problems as one-party Democratic rule has created in California might look like easy pickings for an opposition party. But state voters are significantly out of step with the national GOP on everything from support for the president to environmental issues to immigration, and the state GOP has failed to establish a brand of its own to account for that divergence.Faulconer is an example of what such a brand could look like. He has backed stronger environmental legislation, strongly opposed President Trump’s wall, and is pro-choice. There is nothing particularly radical about his tenure, no grand new vision for a conservative renewal in California or cities nationwide. What he has done is identify a crisis that defines the state — homelessness — and pledged to tackle it. Whether other California Republicans can do the same — delivering on local issues while staying as insulated as possible from divisive national politics — could be key to determining their party’s future.

US troops in northern Syria ordered to leave country: US official

The Pentagon has begun removing all its troops in northern Syria, a US official said Monday, after President Donald Trump ordered them to leave in the face of Turkey's attacks on Kurds in the area. Nearly 1,000 troops will vacate the country, leaving behind only a small contingent of 150 in the southern Syria base at Al Tanf, the official said. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been pressing a deadly assault against Kurdish forces -- a key US ally in the five-year battle to crush the Islamic State group -- in northeastern Syria since Wednesday last week.

Oil Tanker Rates Roar to New Records Amid Geopolitical Risks

(Bloomberg) -- Nothing right now is stopping a surge in oil tanker rates that’s given owners of the vessels one of the biggest boosts in years.Rates have rallied so high that a secondhand supertanker could theoretically pay for itself in a couple of voyages, according to estimates from Clarkson Platou Securities AS. A normal payback period would often be about a decade. The combined market value of Frontline Ltd. and Euronav NV -- two pureplay owners -- has gained by 78% to $4.8 billion since mid-August.Multiple forces, most of them geopolitical, are driving the rally in vessel earnings that reached a record on Friday. Probably the most important bull factor was U.S. sanctions on two units of a Chinese shipping company in September, placing a part of its fleet of oil carriers off-limits for traders. That fired up a freight market that had already gained due to increased Middle East tensions this year.“This is an exciting dynamic that could create the foundation for a steady improvement in rates and a sustainable period of out-sized cash generation,” said Robert Hvide Macleod, the chief executive officer of Frontline’s management company. “Given the geopolitical climate, we wouldn’t be surprised to see episodic periods where rates spike in the future as well.”Daily rates for so-called very large crude carriers to ship oil to China from the Persian Gulf soared by 90% to $300,391 a day at the end of last week, according to data from the Baltic Exchange in London. Those same vessels, which can carry 2 million barrels of crude, were earning $25,000 a day just a month ago.The latest surge began in late September following the Trump administration’s sanctions on units of China COSCO Shipping Corp., the world’s largest merchant vessel owner. Traders were unclear about exactly which tankers were affected, making them wary of booking COSCO carriers even though only a unit was impacted.Red Sea IncidentThe latest lift came from another moment of tension in the Middle East. Iran said on Friday that missiles hit one of the country’s ships in the Red Sea. The incident comes less than a month after an unprecedented attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, which prompted traders to rush for crude supplies from elsewhere.Earnings for ships on the benchmark Persian Gulf-China route began to pass the $100,000-a-day mark -- already a very high level by historic standards -- early last week. On Friday, the VLCC Ardeche, was booked for a journey in early November from the Middle East to Singapore at a rate equating to $327,853, excluding idle days, according to a fixture report listed by shipping pool Tankers International.New Thing“It’s important to remember that rates were trending higher and well above our breakeven levels before the sanctions on COSCO added fuel to the fire,” Macleod said. “The fundamentals were in place due to U.S. exports, falling vessel deliveries, the highest refinery growth in 40 years, and healthy oil demand.”In addition to that, hundreds of tankers are to be fitted with equipment to help them to meet International Maritime Organization sulfur-emissions rules that come into effect from January. Reports of some shippers shunning vessels that have called at Venezuelan ports in the past 12 months also played a part.“Most people in the market haven’t seen this kind of market movement,” Jonathan Lee, chief executive officer at Tankers International, said of the rates rally. “It’s a unique situation but I think you’ve got to put this into perspective. What this is, is a cumulative effect of many things.”The rush to secure vessels to ship oil in the market continues, according to Clarksons Platou.“At current rates, owners could pay back a 10-year-old VLCC, valued at $47m including scrap value of $16m, after only two trips,” Clarksons Platou analysts including Frode Morkedal said in a research note Monday. “Even at half the current VLCC rate, most owners have an earnings yield of above 75% and could thus earn back their entire market cap within a year.”Frontline, controlled by the Norwegian-born billionaire John Fredriksen, in August agreed to buy 10 Suezmax crude oil tankers built in 2019 from Trafigura Pte Ltd. for as much as $675 million in cash and shares.There are some signs of oil-market stress from the surge in rates. Refining margins are being eroded, according to data from Oil Analytics Ltd. That means crude exporters will either need to discount their barrels to make it profitable for refineries to process them, or prices of fuel will need to climb.Frontline’s Macleod says freight rates will settle in at significantly higher levels than seen earlier in the year as demand for vessels is exceeding supply.“U.S. exports are leading to higher ton-mile demand, effective fleet supply will be reduced through the first half of next year as maintenance-driven off-hire increases,” he said. “And most importantly fleet growth will not be as dramatic as in years past.”(Updates language in 10th paragraph)To contact the reporters on this story: Olivia Konotey-Ahulu in London at okonoteyahul@bloomberg.net;Firat Kayakiran in London at fkayakiran@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaric Nightingale at anightingal1@bloomberg.net, John DeaneFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

$20,000 worth of ride props were reportedly stolen from Walt Disney World

The Orlando Sentinel reported on Thursday that the items were taken from a shed behind Test Track in Epcot.

'Do the right thing,' family of UK teen killed in crash tells U.S. diplomat's wife

Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn spoke to media in New York during a visit intended put pressure on the Trump administration to have Anne Sacoolas to be sent back to face British investigators. Harry Dunn, 19, died after a car driven by Sacoolas crashed into his motorbike near RAF Croughton, an air force base in Northamptonshire in central England used by the U.S. military. Vehicles drive on the left in the United Kingdom, and the American woman was driving on the wrong side of the road when the accident happened, Dunn's family said.