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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
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The Black Hebrew Israelites have been labeled a hate group. The suspect wrote anti-Semitic and anti-police posts, an official said.
with LIVE UPDATES by Michael Gold & Ali Watkins @ NYTimes.com, Dec. 11
[....] Here's what you need to know:
- An assailant had links to the Black Hebrew Israelites.
- A neighbor knew one of the suspects, and saw a change.
- A kosher market was targeted.
- There was a shooting at a cemetery, then a gun battle.
- Surveillance footage shows shooters entering the store.
[....]
His one-on-one encounters with voters help explain Biden's enduring popularity in polls.
By Natasha Korecki @ Politico.com, Dec. 9
MASON CITY — It happens organically, without prompting: Joe Biden’s event wraps up and they line up to talk to him. A young woman struggling with the demons of domestic violence. A parent grieving a lost child. A daughter carrying a message from her 99-year-old mother. Most are meeting the former vice president for the first time, but it’s as if they’re finally seeing an old friend.
They lean in and talk into his ear. They take his hands or he takes theirs. The former vice president adopts a priest-like persona: Appearing to block out everything around him, he places his hands atop their shoulders, looks them in the eye, then dispenses words of comfort they’ve skipped work or traveled from another state to hear.
“He told me to remember that it’s not my fault,” said Theresa Hanley, 34, crying as she walked away from their exchange. Hanley said she approached Biden to thank him for his work on the issue and to urge him to help strengthen a domestic violence law in Iowa. “It meant the world to me. I wish more people would think that way.” [....]
By Patricia Zengerle @ Reuters.com, Dec. 9
WASHINGTON - U.S. lawmakers announced an agreement on Monday on a $738-billion bill setting policy for the Department of Defense, including new measures for competing with Russia and China, family leave for federal workers and the creation of President Donald Trump’s long-desired Space Force.
It also calls for sanctions on Turkey over its purchase of a Russian missile defense system, and a tough response to North Korea’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate Armed Services Committees agreed on a compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, after months of negotiations. It is expected to pass before Congress leaves Washington later this month for the year-end holiday break [....]
By Ivana Kottasova, Vasco Cotovio and Bianca Britton @ CNN.com, Dec. 10, Updated 0937 GMT
A gunman is on the run after shooting six people dead and injuring two others at a hospital in the eastern Czech city of Ostrava on Tuesday.
One of the victims was shot in an operating theater and later died. The head of the hospital, Jiří Havrlant, told reporters outside the hospital that all of the victims were patients, and that the suspect was shooting people at close range in their heads and chests The incident happened just after 7 a.m., according to interior minister Jan Hamáček [....]
The up-and-coming artist, whose cause of death remains unknown, went into convulsions while officers in Chicago searched the private plane he arrived in.
By Joe Coscarelli @ NYTimes.com, Dec. 9
When a private plane carrying the popular 21-year-old SoundCloud rapper Juice WRLD landed in Chicago after 1 a.m. on Sunday, law enforcement officials were waiting, having received information from a federal task force that guns and drugs might be onboard.
It was during the subsequent early morning search of the plane and questioning of the dozen individuals on the flight from the Los Angeles area that the rapper, born Jarad A. Higgins, began convulsing, said Anthony Guglielmi, a Chicago police spokesman, on Monday.
Federal agents quickly administered Narcan, a drug used to revive people thought to be overdosing on opioids, to Mr. Higgins, and the Chicago Fire Department was on the scene in under seven minutes, Guglielmi said. But the rapper, who was taken to a hospital, was pronounced dead just after 3 a.m [....]
Australian News compilation @ Twitter.com, 3 hrs. ago, with photos and charts
Smoke from bushfires in the states of New South Wales and Queensland has moved in on Sydney where the Air Quality Index is listed as 11 times higher than the hazardous level. "Hazardous" is listed as 200 on the index, but many parts of Sydney are sitting above 2000 on Tuesday....
"We haven't yet found the right language that makes the community feel as if we understand where they're coming from and what's actually happening to them,” a DNC official said.
By Darren Sands @ BuzzFeedNews.com, Dec. 4
WASHINGTON — Democrats are getting increasingly worried that black Americans with an uneven voting history may tune out Democratic candidates in 2020, as fringe messaging campaigns and disinformation breed cynicism over what the party has done for black Americans.
Democratic National Committee sources told BuzzFeed News the party is tracking a new set of loosely organized online movements that officials believe are trying to steer black voters away from the party or from voting altogether. The groups are varied in their approach, but share a common thread of deep suspicion of the Democratic Party and an apparent determination to seize upon the hypersensitive political moment in a country with a deeply troubled racial past [....]
By Larissa Pham @ CJR.org, fall 2019 print issue
On the meme: Press conferences are for the powerful; rumors are for ordinary people trying to take down people in power.
Analysis by Elisabeth Rosenthal (physician journalist) @ NYTimes.com Sunday Review, Dec. 7
Much of what we accept as legal in medical billing would be regarded as fraud in any other sector.
I have been circling around this conclusion for this past five years, as I’ve listened to patients’ stories while covering health care as a journalist and author. Now, after a summer of firsthand experience — my husband was in a bike crash in July — it’s time to call out this fact head-on. Many of the Democratic candidates are talking about practical fixes for our high-priced health care system, and some legislated or regulated solutions to the maddening world of medical billing would be welcome [....]
Why is Trump training Saudi terrorists at American military bases to pilot aircraft when all the terrorist pilots of 9/11 were Saudi origin?
By Alexander Bolton @ TheHill.com, Dec. 7
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) caused a stir Friday when he said a “handful” of Senate Republican colleagues have privately told him they would consider voting to remove President Trump from office.
Murphy conceded “it’s a small list, on one hand,” but Democrats would consider it a major victory if they could tout a bipartisan vote in the Senate to remove Trump from office in an election year.
His remarks created buzz since no congressional Republicans have publicly said they would even consider taking such a step, and not one House GOP lawmaker voted for the resolution establishing the rules for the impeachment inquiry. But Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.), an independent who left the Republican Party in July, said Friday he would vote for articles of impeachment [....]
