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President Donald Trump announced Hamza bin Laden's death in a statement Saturday that did not provide details about how or when he was killed.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 12:19 PM

A fire that destroyed a historic synagogue in northeastern Minnesota doesn't appear to have been a hate crime, authorities said Sunday in discussing the arrest of a suspect. Matthew James Amiot, 36, of Duluth, was arrested Friday in the fire last week at the Adas Israel Congregation in downtown Duluth, the city's police chief, Mike Tusken, said at a news conference. Tusken said he has no reason to believe the fire was a hate crime, although the investigation is ongoing.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 15, 2019 6:01 PM

The state has new forms, which let applicants “Declined to Answer” about race

POSTED SEPTEMBER 15, 2019 4:55 PM

More than half of the tigers that Thai authorities confiscated in 2016 from an infamous Tiger Temple tourist attraction have died from a viral disease because their immune systems were weakened by inbreeding, media reported. The Buddhist temple west of Bangkok was a tourist destination where visitors took selfies with tigers and bottle-fed cubs until authorities removed its nearly 150 tigers in 2016 in response to global pressure over wildlife trafficking.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 15, 2019 4:47 AM

A British-Australian woman who has been sentenced to 10 years in a notorious Iranian prison has been identified as Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a Cambridge-educated academic specialising in Middle Eastern politics.  Dr Moore-Gilbert, who was working as a lecturer and researcher for Melbourne University's Asia Institute and has published work on authoritarian governance and activism in the Middle East, was jailed in October 2018. However, her detention had not been reported in case it harmed the prospects of her release.  On Saturday, the Australian government confirmed Dr Moore-Gilbert was being held in prison in Iran. A statement from the family of Dr Moore-Gilbert, who is incarcerated in Evin prison, said they were in close contact with Australian authorities on the matter.  "Our family thanks the Government and the University of Melbourne for their ongoing support at this distressing and sensitive time. "We believe that the best chance of securing Kylie's safe return is through diplomatic channels." It is not known what Dr Moore-Gilbert was charged with, but 10-year terms are routinely given in Iran for spying. She is one of two British-Australian women whose detentions in Iran have come to light in the past week. Jolie King with her partner Mark Firkin Jolie King, a travel blogger, and her Australian fiancé Mark Firkin were arrested near a military site in Jajrood near Tehran on August 9, it was revealed on Thursday. They had reportedly been using a drone to film aerial footage in the area.  They too have been sent to Evin prison, the main detention centre for Iran's political prisoners, which also houses 41-year-old Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian mother of one who is midway through a five-year sentence on spying charges. Tehran has pursued a campaign of detaining Iranian and dual nationality academics in recent years, raising fears the Islamic Republic is using them as diplomatic leverage. The Australian government has said it is lobbying Tehran to ensure all three are appropriately looked after. Iran is believed to be holding the trio captive in the hope of exchanging one of them for an Iranian imprisoned in the US on charges of evading American sanctions. Tensions between Britain and Iran escalated dramatically after it emerged the women were being held in the first recent case of Tehran arresting British citizens who do not also hold Iranian nationality.  Sources said Tehran sees the women as bargaining chips to secure the release of Negar Ghodskani, a 40-year-old Iranian woman facing jail in the US after pleading guilty to a conspiracy to export prohibited technology to Iran.  Ghodskani was arrested in Australia in 2017 at the request of US government and gave birth to a baby boy while in custody in Adelaide. She was extradited to the US and now faces five years in federal prison.   Negar Ghodskani Credit: AP While Iran has not commented publicly on any of the arrests, in April the country's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, proposed swapping Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe for Ms Ghodskani.   According to the University of Melbourne's website, Dr Moore-Gilbert "specialises in Middle Eastern politics, with a particular focus on the Arab Gulf states," and has published work on the 2011 Arab uprisings, authoritarian governance, and on the role of new media technologies in political activism. In 2018 she was awarded a grant to investigate "Iran’s relationship with Bahrain’s Shi’a after the Arab Uprisings". Dr Moore-Gilbert's LinkedIn profile shows her first degree came in Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge, where she also completed her Master of Arts. Australia's Foreign Minister Marise Payne said she has raised the cases of the three prisoners "many times" with Mr Zarif, and denied the arrests were politically motivated. "We have no reason to think that these arrests are connected to international concern over Iran's nuclear programme, United Nations sanction enforcement or maritime security concerning the safety of civilian shipping," Senator Payne said. What appears to be the Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1 off the coast of Tartus, Syria, Credit: Reuters News of the three prisoners has come amid a downturn in relations between Britain and Iran, sparked by issues including the Royal Marines' seizure near Gibraltar in July of an Iranian oil tanker, the Grace I. Iran responded by seizing British-flagged oil tanker the Stena Impero. While Britain released the Iranian tanker, the Stena Impero is still being held.  Australia also said in July that it would join the US and the UK in protecting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz from Iranian threats. Relations between Tehran and the West, especially the United States, have deteriorated significantly since the Trump administration withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions, prompting Iran to ramp up restricted enrichment.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 12:56 AM

Tesla's automated emergency braking (AEB) system, which was first introduced in 2017, has improved markedly in a relatively short amount of time. Just a few weeks ago, for example, Tesla demonstrated its next-gen AEB system which can more ably apply the brakes when a pedestrian or cyclist is detected. With that said, we recently stumbled across a new video which shows a Tesla Model 3 abruptly hit the brakes when a police officer on a motorcycle runs a red light and turns left into oncoming traffic. The officer was presumably chasing someone but his sirens were off at the time. As you can see in the video below, the Model 3 owner begins to accelerate at a green light and doesn't see the police officer swooping in from the right-hand side. Luckily, the Model 3 detected the officer and swiftly applied the brakes. https://youtu.be/SZdRTVfRi48 Describing the incident, the Model 3 owner posted the following on his YouTube channel. > Happened this morning; I was rolling about my way when the light turns green, and out of nowhere a cop without their audio on for their sirens runs a red light. If not for Tesla's emergency stop safety features this would not have been a good day. Thank you Tesla and ElonMusk for making the Model3 the safest car ever or I might've scarred myself for life with a horrible accident.Another angle of the incident can be seen below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3D3pzSWVjc&t=46s Of course, this is hardly the first time we've seen a Tesla take evasive action and avoid a potentially serious collision. In the video below, a Tesla that was rear ended quickly swerves to the left to avoid the car directly ahead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=QVdTAwU07Jc

POSTED SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 11:07 PM

North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows calls the Democrats' impeachment push 'political theater.'

POSTED SEPTEMBER 15, 2019 9:05 AM

POSTED SEPTEMBER 15, 2019 4:26 PM

The Minnesota congresswoman says Netanyahu is standing in the way of a possible two-state solution.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 15, 2019 12:14 PM

Death of son of the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was reported but not confirmed in JulyIn this image from video released by the CIA, Hamza bin Laden is seen at his wedding. Photograph: APDonald Trump confirmed on Saturday that the US has killed Hamza bin Laden, a son of the former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.Bin Laden’s death was reported in July but not confirmed by the US government. The New York Times reported then he was killed some time in the last two years.On Saturday the White House said he was killed in “a United States counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region”. It did not say when or by which US force or agency. It has been reported that the CIA, rather than the US military, may have carried out the strike. The CIA did not comment on Saturday.Reuters reported that an unnamed US official said Hamza was killed “months ago” and Trump was briefed at the time. The Associated Press cited “a US official familiar with the case” as saying the operation occurred within the past 18 months.The official did not say what led to bin Laden’s death being announced now.Bin Laden, who was believed to be aged around 30, had been seeking to lead a resurgence of al-Qaida, which has been eclipsed among jihadist terrorist groups by Islamic State. The US state department designated him as a terrorist in 2017. The US offered a $1m reward for help tracking him down.“[Al-Qaida was] clearly grooming him to be a next generation successor,” Peter Bergen, director of the international security programme at the New America foundation, told the Guardian in July.“Ayman al-Zawahiri [al-Qaida’s official leader] hasn’t been a particularly effective leader. He’s got a sort of charisma deficit. And they were trying to put this guy forward.”On Saturday, using variant spellings of the Bin Laden name, that of the target’s father and the group he led, a statement issued by the White House press secretary read: “Hamza bin Ladin, the high-ranking al-Qa’ida member and son of Usama bin Ladin, was killed in a United States counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region.”Bin Laden’s death, the statement said, “deprives al-Qa’ida of important leadership skills and the symbolic connection to his father” and “undermines important operational activities of the group”.The statement added: “Hamza bin Ladin was responsible for planning and dealing with various terrorist groups.”Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces who raided his compound in Abbottabad, in Pakistan, in 2011.Hamza bin Laden was the son of Khairiah Sabar, one of the former al-Qaida leader’s three surviving wives who lived with him in the compound. Hamza bin Laden’s last public message came in March 2018, threatening the Saudi Arabian regime. This year, he was stripped of Saudi citizenship.Trump’s announcement of the death of Hamza bin Laden came three days after the 18th anniversary of the 11 September attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. More than 2,000 deaths have been attributed to post-9/11 illnesses.Last week, Trump announced the abandonment of peace talks between the Taliban, which sheltered al-Qaida leaders in the run-up to 9/11, the US and the Afghan government.In the week of 9/11 commemorations, a mooted invitation to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, attracted widespread criticism.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 4:23 PM