WaPO/CNN poll showed Kamala Harris winning the debate 63 percent to 37 percent among debate-watchers. Time magazine cover by Tim O’Brien.
An estimated 65 million viewers tuned in to watch the debate between former President Trump and Vice President Harris, preliminary overnight television ratings revealed Wednesday. Ratings were high in battleground Pennsylvania, with the nation’s highest rating coming in Pittsburgh at 44.2. The No. 2 market was Philadelphia, where it drew a 43.4 rating. New York clocked in at a healthy 36.7, putting it at No. 7 among top markets.
Trump began to unravel at the debate after VPOTUS Harris said to the former NBC TV star of The Apprentice: “Your rallies are boring.”
The split-screen said it all: Trump glowered and grimaced, spewing old grievances and strange new attacks while Harris smiled and appeared amused. The former President repeated a baseless Internet rumor that migrant invaders were killing and eating pet dogs and cats in Springfield, OH, and claimed that Harris “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison.”
Vice President Kamala Harris flummoxed Trump when she responded to his accusation that she wants to confiscate firearms.
“Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anybody’s guns away.”
Immediately following the debate, Trump stamped away without shaking hands with VPOTUS Harris. Soon after, megastar Taylor Swift announced via social platform that she was endorsing Kamala Harris. Over 330,000 young people immediately flocked to a voter registration website.
In the aftermath of Trump’s debacle, both candidates found themselves the next day at the Flight 93 memorial ceremony in Pennsylvania honoring the victims of the 9/11 attacks on America.
During this solemn ceremony, Donald Trump is caught winking at a female photographer.
Sources:
Time Magazine
IDF Kills 18 in Gaza School Sheltering Displaced Persons; Six UN Workers KIA
Palestinians search for missing people under the rubble of a destroyed UNRWA-run school, after an IDF strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. (Photo: Mohammed Saber/EPA)
An Israeli airstrike on a central Gaza school being used as a shelter for displaced Palestinians has killed 18 people, six were UN officials. The attack was the highest death toll among UNRWA staff in a single incident. Two airstrikes hit the school and its surroundings.
Earlier, Israel’s military said its air force had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command-and-control centre” on the school grounds, without elaborating on the outcome or the identities of those targeted.
Approximately 5,000 displaced people were sheltering at the school when it was bombed. According to UNRWA, “this school has been hit five times since the war began. It is home to about 12,000 displaced people, mainly women and children.”
Israeli forces have struck several such schools in recent months, saying Palestinian militants were operating and hiding among displaced persons.
At least 220 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA reported that “humanitarian staff, premises and operations have been blatantly and unabatedly disregarded since the beginning of the war.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres: “What’s happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable.” The UN General Assembly recently convened in NYC and the world is waiting for action.
Palestinians mourn as the civil defence teams and civilians carry out search and rescue operations from the rubble after an Israeli attack on Nuseirat Refugee Camp. (Photo: Anadolu/Getty Images)
Earlier on Wednesday, the IDF struck a home near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing 11 people, including six brothers and sisters ranging from 21 months to 21 years old, according to a European hospital which received the casualties.
The war in Gaza is now into its 11th month, with more than 41,000 Palestinians killed. The International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague indicted Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes, but inexplicably his arrest warrant has yet to be issued. In contrast, the ICC both indicted AND issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes against Ukrainians on 17 Mar 2023 (St Patrick’s Day).
Sources:
Six Unrwa workers among estimated 18 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school sheltering displaced | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx88l499vero
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64992727
https://www.icc-cpi.int/
Canada’s Conservative Leader Plans No-Confidence Motion Against Trudeau’s Government
Canadian PM Justin Trudeau (L), Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre (C), NDP leader Jagmeet Singh (R)
Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said his party plans to put forward a no-confidence motion “at the earliest possible opportunity” in hopes of bringing down Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.
Poilievre called on New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh to support the motion and trigger an election. Singh refused to say if his party would support the Conservatives. Last week the NDP withdrew from a supply-and-confidence agreement with Trudeau’s minority Liberal government that helped keep it in power. The deal, reached in 2022, meant the NDP would support the federal government on no-confidence votes in exchange for progress on shared priorities.
The next Canadian federal election is scheduled for October 2025. The Liberals currently have 154 seats in the 338 Canadian House of Commons. The Conservates hold 119 and the NDP 24. The Bloc Québécois, a party based only in Quebec and is devoted to Quebec sovereignty, has 32 seats.
Canada’s Parliament resumes next Monday. Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet has said his party is willing to support the government if the Liberals agree on issues like increased support for seniors and granting Quebec more powers in immigration matters.
Most polls show the Conservatives well ahead of the Liberals with the NDP sitting third. Trudeau said his government will continue to introduce programs that help Canadians like dental care for seniors and childcare.
In June, the Liberals suffered a major upset in a byelection losing a seat in Toronto the party had held for three decades. Two more byelections will be held Monday in Montreal and Winnipeg.
Poilievre also attacked Trudeau for appointing Mark Carney, a former governor of both the Bank of England and Bank of Canada, to act as chair on a task force on economic growth. Poilievre called Carney an unelected “phantom finance minister.”
Source:
US Police Brutality: Former Michigan Police Officer Sentenced for Civil Rights Violation for Violently Assaulting Arrestee
Matthew Rodriguez (49), a former Warren, MI, police officer was sentenced in federal court to one year and one day in prison for using excessive force against an arrestee while fingerprinting and photographing him at a local detention facility.
Warning: Some readers might find the below evidence disturbing.
Note the other two police officers do not restrain Rodriguez, the attacker, but help restrain J.S., the victim. There is no information whether these two officers faced disciplinary action.
On 13 June 2023, then-officer Rodriguez was fingerprinting and photographing an arrestee, J.S., who had recently been brought to the Warren Police Department’s jail for processing. During fingerprinting, Rodriguez and J.S. got into a verbal argument and began trading insults. In retaliation for one of J.S.’ remarks, Rodriguez struck J.S. multiple times and slammed J.S.’ head against the fingerprint room floor.
In connection with his plea, Rodriguez admitted to writing a report in which he made false statements.
Former police officer Matthew Rodriguez (Image: CBS Detroit/WWMT)
Sources:
New Workplace Assault Case Emerges as CIA Shields Sexual Misconduct in Ranks
CIA officer trainee Ashkan Bayatpour (seated left) in Fairfax, VA. 23 Aug 2023. The judge found Bayatpour guilty of attacking a fellow CIA trainee with a scarf in the stairwell of CIA HQ at Langley, VA. (Dana Verkouteren via AP). This previous case was one of several plaguing CIA.
At an impromptu party in the office to celebrate his 50th birthday, veteran CIA officer Donal Asquith got drunk, reached up a colleague’s skirt, and forcibly kissed her in front of stunned co-workers, prosecutors alleged in the latest case of sexual misconduct to spill from the spy agency into a public court.
A recent 648-page internal watchdog report that found systemic shortcomings in the CIA’s handling of such complaints was classified as “secret,” shielded as a potential threat to national security. … “It is inconceivable that sexual misconduct could be considered a state secret,” said Kevin Carroll, an attorney who represents several women in the agency who have made complaints. The watchdog report followed an earlier AP investigation that found at least two dozen women in the CIA came forward to authorities and Congress with accounts of sexual assaults, unwanted touching and what they described as a campaign to silence them. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSIC) released a redacted report of their testimony last April (linked below).
Many women were emboldened by a CIA officer trainee who went to the police in 2022 after the agency failed to take action against a colleague she accused of assaulting her with a scarf in a stairwell at CIA headquarters. Some of those women now say they have faced retaliation, including the victim of the stairwell attack, who was terminated less than six months after suing the agency.
CIA invests a lot of time, money, and resources investigating, vetting, recruiting, and training these elite personnel who are also polygraphed. Incidents like this are costly to the American taxpayer, CIA, as well as to national security. And remarkable that this story would emerge nationally on 9/11, one of CIA’s darkest days.
Sources:
The Associated Press
North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile Toward Sea
After the smoke cleared from the US presidential debate, like a baby wanting a bottle, North Korean supremo Kim Jong-Un ordered the launch of a ballistic missile toward the sea Thursday morning, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported. The launch came days after Kim Jong Un vowed to put his nuclear force fully ready for battle with its rivals. The launch took place off North Korea’s eastern coast but the ROK high command offered no details, such as how far the weapon traveled. Japan’s prime minister’s office also alerted on its X account that North Korea had launched a suspected ballistic missile, but it did not provide details.
The launch was North Korea’s first public weapons firing in more than two months. On 1 July, Pyongyang claimed to have tested a new tactical weapon capable of delivering a “super-large” 4.5 ton-class warhead.
In a speech Monday, Kim said he would redouble efforts to make his nuclear force fully ready for combat with the US and its allies. He said North Korea faced “a grave threat” because of what he called “the reckless expansion” of a US-led regional military bloc that is now developing into a nuclear-based one.
Kim has made similar vows numerous times, but his latest threat came as outside experts believe North Korea will perform a nuclear test explosion or long-range missile test-launches ahead of the US presidential election in November.
As posted on Coriolanus last week, North Korea also resumed launches of trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea.
Since 2022, North Korea has significantly accelerated its weapons testing in a bid to perfect its capabilities to launch strikes on the US and South Korea. The US and South Korea have responded by expanding military drills that North Korea calls invasion rehearsals.
Last month, Kim had held off from missile tests or other provocative military demonstrations as the US and South Korea conducted large-scale summertime military exercises. North Korea issued statements berating the allies for raising tensions.
Source:
North Korea fires ballistic missile toward sea, South Korea says (voanews.com)
Federal Authorities Seize Over 350 Website Domains Used to Import Illegal Switches and Silencers from China
US authorities seized more than 350 websites selling gun silencers and parts from China used to covert semiautomatic pistols into fully automatic machine guns.
Law enforcement conducted undercover purchases from those websites of gun-related items. The shipments from China falsely described their contents as “necklaces” or “toys.” In fact, the packages contained machine gun conversion devices known as “switches” and silencers that are prohibited from being imported under the federal National Firearms Act (NFA). Switches are parts designed to convert semiautomatic pistols into fully automatic machineguns and silencers are devices used to suppress the sound of a firearm when discharged.
Many of the websites sold counterfeit goods and misused gun manufacturer Glock Inc’s trademark to suggest the switches were produced by the company when they were not. Glock reportedly cooperated with the investigation.
The results of this investigation have resulted in the seizure of over 700 devices which would covert a firearm into a machine gun, 87 illegal suppressors, 59 handguns, 36 long guns, as well as the seizure of 355 websites which were used to facilitate the trafficking of these items.
According to the CDC, in 2022 there were more than 48,000 firearm-related deaths in the US. That’s about 132 people dying from a firearm-related injury each day and wartime casualty rates.
Source:
https://www.cdc.gov/firearm-violence/data-research/facts-stats/index.html
A Runaway Penguin Spent Two Weeks Missing at Sea in Japan. A Typhoon May Have Saved Her.
Pen, who was born and raised in captivity, survived two weeks lost at sea in Japan during a typhoon. Photo: Gekidan Penters
A runaway penguin has been found safe in Japan nearly two weeks after she first went missing, having paddled 28 miles during a typhoon in a survival story her keeper called “miraculous.”
The six-year-old Cape penguin, who goes by the name “Pen” and was born and raised in captivity, was swimming with staff from the traveling Gekidan Penters zoo at a beach on central Japan’s Himakajima Island on 25 August when she escaped.
African penguins can swim up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) a day, but in captivity, their muscle mass decreases. Pen had never swum in the sea before visiting that beach.
A powerful typhoon called Shanshan brought torrential wind and rain to the country at the end of August, killing at least six people, displacing millions, knocking out power and disrupting air travel.
But, amid the destruction, the typhoon was a boon for little Pen. With no boats at sea, Pen avoided collisions and getting caught in fishing nets. The record rainfall provided a reliable source of hydration and cooling.
“She survived because of the typhoon,” her owner said. “It was almost miraculous timing.”
Because of the typhoon, Gekidan Penters wasn’t initially able to send out rescue boats to search for Pen, so it was even more surprising when someone spotted her swimming near a beach about eight miles away from where she first went missing.
Pen had no injuries and was in good physical shape. She also passed “substantial droppings,” which means she must’ve found something to snack on during her journey – likely fish or crab, though Pen had never eaten live fish before.
Her owner said Pen was “sleeping very comfortably next to me.”
Pen (L) stands alongside her partner, Gan. Photo: Gekidan Penters
Source:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/12/asia/escapee-penguin-japan-typhoon-hnk-intl/index.html
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Coriolanus 