El Salvador: Evelyn Hernandez cleared over baby's death

Source: BBC

36 minutes ago

A 21-year-old woman in El Salvador whose baby was found dead in the toilet where she gave birth has been cleared of murder during a retrial.

Evelyn Hernández had always maintained she was innocent, saying that she did not know she was pregnant and lost consciousness during the birth.

Prosecutors had asked for a prison sentence of 40 years.

Her case has been closely watched in El Salvador and abroad with women's rights activists calling for her acquittal.

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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49368632

UK's Johnson puts health service off limits in potential U.S. trade deal: report

Source: Reuters

North Pole: multiple lightning strikes follow record-low sea ice levels

Source: The Guardian

North Pole: multiple lightning strikes follow record-low sea ice levels

‘Furthest north lightning strikes in Alaska forecaster memory’ hit as high temperatures and widespread fires plague region

Edward Helmore
Tue 13 Aug 2019 16.27 BST Last modified on Tue 13 Aug 2019 16.29 BST

Multiple lightning strikes have been observed 300 miles from the North Pole, according to the US National Weather Service, in the latest sign of extreme changes to the Arctic environment.

The strikes, detected by the NWS station in Fairbanks, Alaska, were produced by towering storm clouds. They were detected on Saturday, and while not unique, come as the region is experiencing record-low sea ice levels, high temperatures and widespread fires on areas of tundra.

An extreme ice-melt in Greenland is estimated to have produced a run off of 197bn tons of ice-sheet water into the Atlantic, enough to raise sea levels by 0.5mm, or 0.02in, in a one-month time frame. On a single day, 1 August, Greenland lost 12.5bn tons of surface ice to the sea.

At the same time, a wildfire has been burning in western Greenland while Siberian wildfires have produced smoke haze circling the upper regions of the globe.

According to a NWS tweet and statement, the lightning strikes hit an area of sea ice or open ocean waters mixed with ice, near 85 degrees North, 120 degrees East.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/13/north-pole-multiple-lightning-strikes-follow-record-low-sea-ice-levels

President Trump has made 12,019 false or misleading claims over 928 days

Source: Washington Post

President Trump has made 12,019 false or misleading claims over 928 days

By Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly August 12 at 3:00 AM

President Trump’s proclivity for spouting exaggerated numbers, unwarranted boasts and outright falsehoods has continued at a remarkable pace. As of Aug. 5, his 928th day in office, he had made 12,019 false or misleading claims, according to the Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement the president has uttered.

Trump crossed the 10,000 mark on April 26, and he has been averaging about 20 fishy claims a day since then. From the start of his presidency, he has averaged about 13 such claims a day.

About one-fifth of these claims are about immigration, his signature issue — a percentage that has grown since the government shut down over funding for his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. In fact, his most repeated claim — 190 times — is that his border wall is being built. Congress balked at funding the concrete barrier he envisioned, so he has tried to pitch bollard fencing and repairs of existing barriers as “a wall.”

False or misleading claims about trade, the economy and the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign each account for about 10 percent of the total. Claims on those subjects are also among his most repeated.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/12/president-trump-has-made-false-or-misleading-claims-over-days/

Republican groups vow to stop buying Twitter ads until McConnell campaign account is unfrozen

LBN thread: Twitter locks McConnell campaign account after posting video of protester shouting threats, profanit

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Source: Washington Post

He forgot his phone on the bus and got busted with child porn, officials say. It may have thwarted a

Other reporting: Boulder man who allegedly posted guide for hunting refugees, Jews and Muslims arrested on child porn charge (Denver Post - excerpt below)

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Source: Washington Post

He forgot his phone on the bus and got busted with child porn, officials say. It may have thwarted a hate crime.

By Antonia Noori Farzan August 8 at 4:32 AM

The black Apple iPhone sat forgotten on a public bus that looped its way through the bustling streets of Boulder, Colo., in May.

Its owner, Wesley David Gilreath, was already on the radar of the FBI after allegedly posting a “hunting guide” with information about synagogues, mosques and refugee centers. A week earlier, he had been blocked from buying a gun, but he wasn’t charged with a crime. That changed when two transit workers found his abandoned cellphone while cleaning the bus, unlocked it to try to locate the owner and found themselves staring at reams of disturbing images, authorities say.

Gilreath, 29, was charged in federal court Tuesday with possession of child pornography, but officials say his arrest may have also thwarted a domestic terrorist attack.

“The charge in this case demonstrates that the U.S. attorney’s office and our federal and state law enforcement partners will use every available law enforcement tool not just to prosecute federal crimes, but also to disrupt and prevent potential hate crimes,” Jason Dunn, the U.S. attorney in Colorado, said in a statement to local media outlets on Wednesday

According to federal court records, Gilreath sat for an interview with the FBI on Jan. 24, after agents received a tip that someone had been posting online “hunting guides” targeting Jews, Muslims, refugee centers, Bureau of Land Management offices and Montana National Guard facilities, and linked a document labeled as a “Montana Hunting Guide” to the 29-year-old.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/08/he-forgot-his-phone-bus-got-busted-child-porn-it-may-have-thwarted-hate-crime-officials-say/

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Source: Denver Post

Boulder man who allegedly posted guide for hunting refugees, Jews and Muslims arrested on child porn charge

Suspect tried to buy gun and had addresses of local mosques and synagogues

By KIRK MITCHELL | The Denver Post
PUBLISHED: August 7, 2019 at 12:24 pm | UPDATED: August 7, 2019 at 1:34 pm

Federal agents have arrested a 29-year-old Boulder man on a pornography charge, and the U.S. attorney in Colorado said the arrest may have prevented a domestic terrorist attack because the man also is suspected of writing an online guide on how to commit violent hate crimes against refugee centers, synagogues and mosques.

Wesley David Gilreath was charged Tuesday with possession of child pornography, but federal law officers also arrested him in order to potentially stop a domestic terror attack, according to a statement by U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn.

“The charge in this case demonstrates that the U.S. Attorney’s Office and our federal and state law enforcement partners will use every available law enforcement tool not just to prosecute federal crimes, but also to disrupt and prevent potential hate crimes,” Dunn’s statement said.

Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak ordered Gilreath detained without bond on the pornography charge Tuesday during a hearing in U.S. District Court. The investigation against Gilreath for other possible federal crimes is continuing, Dunn wrote in his statement.

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Read more: https://www.denverpost.com/2019/08/07/us-attorney-colorado-domestic-terrorism-pornography-arrest/

8chan's new internet host was kicked off its own host just hours later

Amazon deforestation: Bolsonaro government accused of seeking to sow doubt over data

Source: The Guardian

Amazon deforestation: Bolsonaro government accused of seeking to sow doubt over data

Ministers look at setting up alternative monitoring scheme as existing system shows alarming rise in clearance rates

Jonathan Watts
@jonathanwatts
Thu 1 Aug 2019 02.59 BST Last modified on Thu 1 Aug 2019 18.30 BST

The Amazon forest is being burned and chopped down at the most alarming rate in recent memory, but the Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro is focused on reinterpreting the data rather than dealing with the culprits, monitoring groups have said.

At a clearance rate equivalent to a Manhattan island every day, deforestation in July was almost twice as fast as the worst month ever recorded by the current satellite monitoring system, which is managed by the government’s National Institute for Space Research.

Over the single month, the latest data shows destruction of more than 1,800 square kilometres, which is pushing the world’s biggest rainforest towards an irreversible tipping point and eroding a globally essential sink for carbon dioxide.

After an international outcry, the Brazilian government – which is closely aligned with the loggers, miners and farmers responsible for most of the forest loss – held a special meeting on Wednesday of ministers and senior officials from the environment ministry, the science and technology ministry, and agencies responsible for satellites and forest protection.

The primary topic, according to several sources, was a review of the data collection system, which has come under attack from Bolsonaro and other ministers who have been embarrassed by the evidence from their own government that Brazil is moving in the opposite direction from the deforestation control commitments it made as a signatory to the Paris climate treaty.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/01/amazon-deforestation-bolsonaro-government-accused-doubt-data

Doctors urge probe of child migrant deaths: 'Poor conditions' at border increase risk of spreading f

Source: Washington Post

Doctors urge probe of child migrant deaths: ‘Poor conditions’ at border increase risk of spreading flu

By Robert Moore August 1 at 7:17 AM

EL PASO — A group of doctors from Harvard and Johns Hopkins has urged Congress to investigate the deaths of six migrant children who were held in government custody after crossing the southern border in the past year, warning that “poor conditions” at U.S. facilities are increasing the risk of spreading deadly infectious diseases, especially the flu.

The doctors, who wrote to Congress on Thursday, said autopsy reports show that at least three of the children — ages 2, 6 and 16 — died in part as a result of having the flu, a far higher incidence of such deaths than across the general population. Child flu deaths are rare, the doctors said, and should be preventable.

“Poor conditions at the facilities may be amplifying the spread of influenza and other infectious diseases, increasing health risks to children,” according to the letter, submitted by Harvard pediatrics professor Jonathan Winickoff; Johns Hopkins public health professors Joshua Sharfstein and Paul Siegel and two of their master’s students; and San Francisco forensic pathologist Judy Melinek. “With so many lives at risk, these issues are worthy of congressional investigation. Another influenza season is around the corner, and there are other types of infectious diseases that pose a threat to detained populations. Timely action is critical.”

The letter, dated Thursday, alleges that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services — which supervises longer-term custody of unaccompanied migrant minors — might not be following best practices in regard to screening, treatment, isolation and prevention of the flu.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/doctors-urge-probe-of-child-migrant-deaths-poor-conditions-at-border-increase-risk-of-spreading-flu/2019/08/01/0bf86b06-b445-11e9-8f6c-7828e68cb15f_story.html