Hundreds march in Sudan capital seeking justice for martyrs

Hundreds of protesters marched Saturday through downtown Khartoum to demand justice for those killed in demonstrations against Sudan's now ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir. More than 250 people were killed and hundreds injured in the months-long protests that erupted in December 2018, according to umbrella protest movement Forces of Freedom and Change. Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for 30 years, was deposed by the army in a palace coup on April 11 after the demonstrations triggered by an acute economic crisis.

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Germany to make anti-Semitism a specific hate crime as Jews 'no longer feel safe'

Germany is to tighten its laws against anti-Semitic hate crimes in the wake of last month's failed attack on a synagogue by a far-Right gunman. “I am ashamed that Jews no longer feel safe in Germany and that so many are even thinking of leaving the country,” Christine Lambrecht, the justice minister, told German MPs. “We have to send a clear signal against anti-Semitism.” Under the planned changes, crimes with an anti-Semitic motive will attract heavier sentences. The move comes after a synagogue in east Germany narrowly escaped becoming the scene of a massacre last month. Stephan Balliet, a German national who released a far-Right "manifesto" before the attack, failed in his attempts to break into the synagogue which was packed with 51  people marking Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. He later turned his gun on bystanders, killing two people. While the Halle attack was the highest profile incident, it was by no means an isolated case. Just days before, a Syrian man was stopped by security guards as he tried to enter Berlin’s best known synagogue armed with a knife and shouting “Allahu akbar” and “F*** Israel”. Anti-Semitic crimes across Germany rose by 10 per cent to a total of 1,646 last year, but it is the figures for violence that are most alarming. Violent anti-Semitic crimes rose by 60 per cent, with 62 offences leaving 43 people injured. More than 50 people were trapped inside the synagogue while the gunman tried to gain entry Credit: Craig Stennett for the Telegraph They include the case of an Israeli man who was attacked and whipped with a belt while wearing a Jewish kippah skullcap in central Berlin in April last year. Adam Armoush, an Israeli Arab who lives in Berlin, is not Jewish but was wearing the kippah in an attempt to prove Berlin was safe for Jewish people. In the wake of that incident felix Klein, the German government’s anti-Semitism commissioner, issued a warning to Jewish men not to wear skullcaps in public for their own safety. Mr Klein later retracted his warning after a public outcry. In another case in July last year, a Jewish Syrian man wearing a Star of David pendant was attacked and beaten by a group of people when he stopped to ask for a light for his cigarette in central Berlin. Anti-Semitic incidents last year also include one an attack on a Jewish restaurant in the east German city of Chemnitz. Masked men broke surrounded the entrance to the restaurant and broke the windows with stones while the owner was trapped inside. Current German laws recognise discrimination against a particular group of people as an aggravating factor in any crime that can lead to a heavier sentence. But the planned changes will explicitly name anti-Semitism for the first time. The change is part of a package introduced after the Halle synagogue attack. Other measures include laws obliging social media networks to inform the authorities of online threats and incitement to hatred. “This is an important step towards consistent punishment of anti-Semitic crimes,” said Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. “With the planned amendment to the law, the federal government is living up to its commitment to fight anti-Semitism resolutely and protect Jewish life.” “Anti-Semitic offences are not just attacks on individual people of the Jewish faith, they always an attack on our values, on our constitutional state, and on our democracy as a whole,” said Georg Eisenreich, the regional justice minister for Bavaria, where prosecutors recently announced they will prioritise anti-Semitic crimes.

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London Bridge: Video shows public confront London Bridge attacker

Footage shows members of the public using a fire extinguisher and a tusk to confront Usman Khan.

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London Bridge: Video shows public confront London Bridge attacker

Footage shows members of the public using a fire extinguisher and a tusk to confront Usman Khan.

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Iraqis keep up anti-regime demos despite PM's vow to quit

Iraqis kept up angry anti-government protests in Baghdad and the south on Saturday to demand a broad overhaul of a system seen as corrupt and under the sway of foreign powers, a day after the premier vowed to quit. Protesters have hit the streets since early October in the largest grassroots movement Iraq has seen in decades, sparked by fury at poor public services, lack of jobs and widespread government graft. The toll spiked dramatically this week as a crackdown killed dozens in Baghdad, the Shiite shrine city of Najaf -- where another protester was killed Saturday -- and the southern hotspot of Nasiriyah.

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2 victims were killed and police fatally shot a man wearing a hoax explosive vest in a terrorist attack at London Bridge

London Metropolitan Police closed London Bridge and London Bridge Station is also closed. City of London police shot the man, who died at the scene.

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Thanksgiving photo Bill O'Reilly posted to Twitter freaks people out

Bill O’Reilly’s promotional tweet for his interview with President Trump went viral on Thursday, but not in the way he likely would have wanted.

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Chicago officer investigated for body-slamming man to ground

A Chicago police officer is being investigated for body-slamming a man who spat on his face, authorities said Friday. The officer approached the man for drinking alcohol at a bus stop, police said. “While a single video does not depict the entirety of the interactions between the police and the individual, this particular video is very disturbing,” Lightfoot said.

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A Leak-Prone White House Finally Manages to Keep a Secret

By BY MICHAEL CROWLEY from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2OD7lGl

Northeastern US braces for foot of snow during first days of December

The second part of a double-barreled storm is forecast to unload heavy snow and create difficult travel over a large part of the northeastern United States, including some major cities from Sunday to Monday.A winterlike storm from the Midwest will move in this weekend, then hand off to a new coastal storm that strengthens by Monday.Accumulating snow is forecast to occur in Boston; Hartford, Connecticut; New York City and even to some extent around the Trenton, New Jersey, and Philadelphia area from the storm. The heaviest snow, on the order of 6-12 inches is forecast from the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania to central Massachusetts and southwestern New Hampshire. However, pockets of 12-18 inches are in store for the Catskills and Berkshires, where an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 24 inches is expected.Heavy snow is in store for much of the Hudson, Mohawk and Connecticut river valleys with a few inches as far south as parts of the Delaware and Lehigh valleys.Part of the storm will bring ice, rain and a wintry mix along the Interstate-95 corridor from Philadelphia to New York City and Boston, with the ice and mix to occur during Sunday into Sunday night. Conditions are likely to be a wintry mess around the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where the Packers will take on the Giants during Sunday afternoon. Farther south and west, drenching rain is in the offing for the NFL game between the 49ers and Ravens at Baltimore, and perhaps in Pittsburgh for the Browns and Steelers match up.A significant buildup of ice is forecast over parts of the central Appalachians to southern New England with dangerous travel conditions and the risk of falling tree limbs and power outages. How damaging the ice storm is will depend on whether the primary form of precipitation is sleet or freezing rain. Sleet tends to bounce off, while freezing rain weighs down trees and power lines.The middle part of the storm is likely to be the warmest during Sunday night. This is when just enough warm air is likely to sweep in from the south and the Atlantic to bring plain rain to coastal areas of the upper mid-Atlantic and southeastern New England. However farther inland, a transition from wet snow to more powdery snow is in store in some areas and a wintry mix or ice to snow in others as a storm along the coast strengthens and begins to pull in colder air.Rain showers will change to snow showers from the Ohio Valley to the central Appalachians during Sunday night and Monday. Locally a coating to an inch or two of snow can accumulate in these areas.During Monday, cold air is likely to collapse toward the mid-Atlantic and southern New England coast to bring a change to accumulating snow. While an accumulation of a coating to an inch or so is possible around Philadelphia, up to a few inches may fall on the New York City area with several inches likely around Boston. Much heavier snow is likely in the northern and western suburbs of New York City and Boston, with a few inches possible well north of Philadelphia.Should the storm strengthen a bit more, heavy snow may fall right in New York City and a few inches might occur in Philadelphia on Monday. Boston could pick up a foot of snow in such a case where rain does not hold back the accumulation.Some schools that are scheduled to be in session on Monday may have delays or cancellations. Flight delays and cancellations are likely from Boston to New York City and Philadelphia. Ripple-effect days can be felt not only in the Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh areas, but across much of the nation as crews and aircraft are likely to be displaced as the storm also affected some of the major Midwest hubs this weekend. For those with flexible travel plans are encouraged to postpone Sunday and Monday trips.Travel conditions are likely to improve dramatically over the region on Tuesday as crews will have been out plowing and/or treating the road with ice-melting compounds. However, snow is likely to start the day in eastern New England. Download the free AccuWeather app to check the forecast in your area, as well as points along your travel route. Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.

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Ilhan Omar's Republican opponent was banned from Twitter after suggesting the congresswoman should be tried for treason and hanged

The Republican campaign promoted a wild conspiracy theory that Omar had illegally shared sensitive government information with Qatar and Iran.

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Inmate wanted by ICE released on bail. He was arrested weeks later for attempted murder

A 2019 Colorado law bars law enforcement officials in the state from holding a person based only on a request from ICE.

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London Attack by Convicted Terrorist Disrupts U.K. Campaign

(Bloomberg) -- The man suspected of stabbing two people to death near London Bridge had been released early from jail after a terrorism conviction, allowing an attack in the heart of the city that is disrupting the U.K.’s general election campaign two weeks before the vote.Officers shot and killed the 28-year-old attacker, who was wearing a fake suicide vest after members of the public wrestled him to the ground on London Bridge, on the edge of the city’s financial district. He was tackled by passersby moments after carrying out the attack at about 2 p.m. on Friday.Boris Johnson broke away from campaigning on Friday for the Dec. 12 election to rush back to Downing Street for a security briefing on the attack. Speaking afterward, he praised the civilians who tried to stop the suspected terrorist before police arrived, and declared that “Britain will not be cowed” by the incident.On Saturday, Johnson met with police at the site of the attack and used the opportunity to criticize the U.K.’s criminal justice system, which routinely allows for jail sentences, even for criminals committing violent crimes or acts of terrorism, to be reduced.“The practice of automatic early release, when you cut a sentence in half and let serious and violent offenders out, is not working,” he told the BBC after his meeting with police.Click Here for the Day’s Events as They HappenedThe suspect, identified by police as Usman Khan, was released from prison on parole in December 2018, the police said in a statement. Khan was one of nine people convicted in 2012 for offenses ranging from a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange to planning a terrorist training camp. Khan originally received an indeterminate sentence, which was changed on appeal in 2013 to 16 years, the BBC reported.Johnson also praised the men who fought the attacker and pinned him to the ground on London Bridge until the police arrived. Khan began the attack while attending a conference on prisoner rehabilitation at a building called Fishmongers’ Hall next to the bridge.A Polish chef grabbed an ornamental narwhal tusk off a wall and used it to confront the attacker, while another chased Khan with a fire extinguisher, Sky News reported. A third man who aided the victims and tried to fend Khan off was a convicted murderer who was close to completing his sentence, the Telegraph reported, while another man stopped his car and helped the others force Khan to release the two knives he was carrying.“I want to pay tribute to the sheer bravery of the members of the public who went to deal with and put their own lives at risk,“ Johnson said.The first victim of the attack was identified as Jack Merritt, 25, a University of Cambridge graduate who was a coordinator of the conference that Khan attended, the BBC reported.With voters set to go to the polls on Dec. 12, the impact of such a potentially disruptive event is unclear. But the revelation that the attacker was a former convicted terrorist is likely to put pressure on the ruling Conservatives -- who traditionally view crime prevention as one of their stronger cards -- to explain why the person was allowed out of jail.Johnson also told the BBC that his government would review sentencing policies in the wake of the attack.Campaigning in the U.K.’s last election in 2017 was thrown off course by two terrorist attacks, including one in the same area of London just five days before the vote. In that incident, eight people were killed and 48 injured.In the aftermath of the 2017 attack, U.S. President Donald Trump triggered a diplomatic row when he criticized London Mayor Sadiq Khan over his response, and their spat has continued ever since. The U.S. president arrives in the U.K. next week for a NATO summit, which Johnson hopes will be a low-key visit.Trump spoke to Johnson on Saturday and expressed his condolences following the attack, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. On Friday, Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke by phone and each suspended their election campaigns in the capital for the rest of the day. Johnson’s team said he would also cancel his events on Saturday so he can focus on the security response.But speaking to television reporters just before a meeting of the government’s ‘Cobra’ crisis committee on Friday evening, Johnson highlighted his election pledge to hire extra police officers.‘Hunted Down’“Anybody involved in this crime and these attacks will be hunted down and will be brought to justice,” he said. “This country will never be cowed or divided or intimidated by this sort of attack and our British values will prevail.”After the alarm was raised on Friday lunchtime, armed police cleared cafes and shops in the London Bridge area. Officers burst into restaurants in the popular Borough Market area on the other side of the river, urging diners to leave immediately. They shouted “Out, out, out,” to people at the Black and Blue bar, and ordered customers to walk away with their hands on their heads. Nearby, police shouted to pedestrians to “run.”The police asked people to avoid the area. Mayor Sadiq Khan said Saturday on BBC’s Radio 4 that while there will be “more high visibility police officers present in London” through the weekend “there’s no reason to believe there is an increased threat” from terrorism. The bridge will remain closed for some time, he said from the site on Saturday afternoon.(Updates with Trump-Johnson phone call from 15th paragraph.)\--With assistance from Tim Ross.To contact the reporters on this story: Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.net;Greg Ritchie in London at gritchie10@bloomberg.net;Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, James Amott, Andrew DavisFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Tens of thousands rally in Europe, Asia before UN climate summit

Tens of thousands of protesters, primarily in Europe and Asia, hit the streets on Friday to make a fresh call for action against global warming, hoping to raise pressure on world leaders days before a UN climate summit. Carrying signs that read "One planet, one fight" and "The sea is rising, so must we", thousands flocked to Berlin's Brandenburg Gate for the latest "Fridays for Future" protest inspired by 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg. In total, about 630,000 people demonstrated across more than 500 cities in Germany, the Fridays for Future movement said.

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2 victims are dead and a suspect was killed by police in a London terror incident. Here's how the attack unfolded.

Police said they were called to London Bridge just before 2 p.m. local time on Friday afternoon for reports of a stabbing.

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2 victims were killed and police fatally shot a man wearing a hoax explosive vest in a terrorist attack at London Bridge

London Metropolitan Police closed London Bridge and London Bridge Station is also closed. City of London police shot the man, who died at the scene.

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Kamala Harris' campaign manager is under fire, receives blame for decline

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) isn't bouncing back after a precipitous decline in the Democratic presidential race -- and fingers are starting to point at her campaign manager.Juan Rodriguez has drawn the ire of both camapaign staffers and outside observers, The New York Times reports. "This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly," state operations director Kelly Mehlenbacher wrote in a resignation letter obtained by the Times.Mehlenbacher clarified she still supported Harris as a candidate, but did not have confidence in the campaign's leadership. She specifically cited the campaign's decision to move people from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland, and then "lay them off with no notice" and "without thoughtful consideration of the personal consequences to them."Harris and other senior staff members were reportedly blindsided and angered by the extent of the layoffs, and some aides reportedly found out about them from junior aides and the press rather than Rodriguez himself.One of Harris' congressional supporters, Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), said she told the senator she needs to make a change. "The weakness is at the top, and it's clearly Juan," she said. "He needs to take responsibility -- that's where the buck stops."More stories from theweek.com God's gift to America? 5 scathingly funny cartoons about the Trump-ified GOP Democrats are running into Trump's economic buzzsaw

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The First Time Congress Tried to Impeach a President Was a Disaster

It didn't go as planned...

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Pelosi to attend climate summit amid withdrawal from climate deal

The U.S. began the formal withdrawal process from the Paris Climate Agreement earlier this month.

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Lebanese rally against Iraq's crackdown on protesters

Dozens of people in protest-swept Lebanon staged a candlelit vigil outside Iraq's embassy on Saturday to denounce the excessive use of force against demonstrators there. Participants at the Beirut observance raised pictures of Iraqi protesters who have been killed in an unprecedented anti-government movement. Some raised the Lebanese flag, while one woman wrapped the Iraqi tricolour around her shoulders.

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Ilhan Omar GOP challenger banned from Twitter after saying she should be "tried for treason and hanged”

Danielle Stella campaign account also tweeted a picture of a stick figure being hanged with a link to a blog post about her comments.

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‘Hero’ Who Ended Terror Rampage Was Convicted Killer

Simon Dawson/ReutersLONDON—A frenzied knife attack by a known terrorist who was let out of prison early on parole was halted by a posse of Londoners that included a convicted killer on day release.The first deadly terror attack in Britain for two years spilled out of a Cambridge University event on rehabilitating ex-cons. A university spokesman told The Daily Beast that the terrorist Usman Khan had been invited to the event, but could not confirm reports that he had addressed the symposium, which included former prisoners and prison staff.A more detailed account of the attack emerged Saturday as the Islamic State claimed that one of its attackers carried out the stabbing, the group’s Amaq news agency reported. The announcement didn’t provide any evidence for the claim.Khan, 28, was wearing a tracking device on his ankle and a hoax suicide belt around his waist when he walked up the grand staircase inside the historic Fishmongers’ Hall, pulled out two knives, and threatened to blow up the building.He was run out of the event by attendees grabbing makeshift weapons to confront the killer, who had already inflicted fatal injuries on two people and wounded several more. One man picked up a fire extinguisher, another pulled the unicorn-like tusk of a narwhal off the wall and gave chase.Khan fled onto London Bridge with the avenging conference guests in hot pursuit. The man with the antique whale cudgel was identified by The Times as a Polish chef called Luckasz, who suffered lacerations in the attack. “Being stabbed didn’t stop him giving him a beating,” a colleague who did not want to be named told the paper.Some of the others who turned on the killer reportedly were ex-cons attending the event.They sprayed him in the face with the fire extinguisher and managed to force him to the ground even though he was flailing at them with knives that were taped to his wrists. Several people held him down while police cars raced to the scene.A man named James Ford grabbed one of the terrorist’s knives and carried it to safety, staggering south across the bridge away from the melee and warning clueless pedestrians to back away from a potential explosion.As cell-phone footage spread across social media and onto global news networks, the man was labelled a hero. Some of those watching the video, however, were appalled by what they saw.Angela Cox, 65, received a phone call from police liaison officers telling her to switch on the TV. She thought the man who had disarmed the terrorist was still in prison.Ford had been convicted of the brutal murder of her niece in 2004. He approached the 21-year-old, who was said to have the mental age of a 15-year-old, in an area of woodland and slit her throat. The judge at the time said: “What you did was an act of wickedness. You clearly have an interest in the macabre and also an obsession with death including murder by throat cutting.”He was out of prison on day release on Friday, reportedly to attend the University of Cambridge Criminology department’s “Learning Together” event, although a spokesman was unable to confirm.> — “He murdered a disabled girl. He is not a hero.”“He murdered a disabled girl. He is not a hero,” said Cox. “They let him out without even telling us. It was a hell of a shock.”The authorities will also have to explain why Khan was allowed out of prison to murder at least two people—one man and one woman who have not yet been named. In 2012, he was convicted of plotting to carry out terror attacks in London and set up a terror training camp on land owned by his family in Pakistan.The judge said Khan, who was just 19 at the time, was one of the ringleaders of a small British terror network that followed the teachings of U.S.-born Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki. The eight men, who had been tracked for months by MI5, were convicted on terror offenses including a plot to blow up the London Stock Exchange—they also had a target list that included the U.S. Embassy and the home address of Boris Johnson, who is now prime minister.Five of them were given conventional jail sentences, but the judge said Khan and two of his colleagues were so dangerous that they should be locked up indefinitely under Imprisonment for Public Protection legislation.“They were about the long term business of establishing and operating a terrorist military training facility in Pakistan, on land owned by the family of Usman Khan to which British recruits, whom they would recruit, would go to receive training,” the judge said. “Furthermore it was envisaged by them all that ultimately they, and the other recruits may return to the UK as trained and experienced terrorists available to perform terrorist attacks in this country.”His ruling that they should remain in custody until they were no longer deemed a threat was quashed by the court of appeal in 2013. Britain’s head of counterterror policing Neil Basu said late on Friday night that Khan was released last year. The Times reported that he had agreed to wear an electronic monitoring device and live under restrictions including a curfew at his home in Staffordshire in the West Midlands.He would likely have told the officials monitoring his movements that he was traveling down to London to take part in the rehabilitation event “celebrating five years of Learning Together.”Khan had just taken part in a workshop on storytelling and creative writing when he revealed his true motivation for taking part in the event on the banks of the River Thames.Professor Anthony Glees, the director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, who contributed to the parliamentary Homeland Security Group, said it was clear that the authorities and the academics who wanted to help had failed to identify the true scale of the threat from this man.“That is a deep irony, the do-gooder culture in universities actually gave him the opportunity; how daft was that?” he said to The Daily Beast. “Once a jihadist always a jihadist.”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.

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Gigantic storm to wreak havoc on post-Thanksgiving travel

A massive winter storm that has already prompted warnings from Arizona to Wisconsin will be lumbering east in coming days, almost certainly interfering with Thanksgiving return-travel plans for millions, The Washington Post reports. By the time it's finished, the storm, created by the same conditions that caused the "bomb cyclone" in California and Arizona earlier in the week, could pummel an area stretching from the Sierra Nevadas to New England -- where a nor'easter is predicted to begin on Sunday night. "This storm will... produce significant snow and blizzard conditions across the Northern Plains through Saturday before moving to the Great Lakes and Northeast Sunday and Monday," the National Weather Service said in a statement. USA Today reports that Accuweather is forecasting up to three feet of snow in South Dakota's Black Hills region, where "visibility could be so low at times it may be difficult to determine where the road surface actually is." So if you happen to be stuck at a relative's house this weekend: stay inside, avoid discussing politics, and try not to get too sick of that days-old cranberry sauce.More stories from theweek.com Democrats are running into Trump's economic buzzsaw 5 gut-bustingly funny cartoons about politics and Thanksgiving Knives Out does what so many of the best mysteries do: Carve up the rich

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Trump administration appoints man who suggested dropping nuclear bombs on Afghanistan to senior role in arms control

A Trump adviser who suggested dropping nuclear bombs on Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks has been given a senior role on arms control issues in the State Department.Frank Wuco, a former conservative radio host and naval intelligence officer, has also promoted far-right conspiracy theories, such as debunked claims that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

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U.K. Police Shoot Man After Potential Terrorist Attack in London

(Bloomberg) -- Armed police shot a man after a possible terrorist attack sent hundreds of people running for their lives in the heart of London.Several civilians were believed to have been injured in a stabbing just before 2 p.m. in the London Bridge area on the edge of the capital’s financial center, police said.Prime Minister Boris Johnson broke away from the general election campaign to rush back to his Downing Street offices where he will be briefed on the events.The streets around London Bridge were locked down and armed police cleared restaurants and shops in the area. Officers are treating the incident as terror-related “as a precaution,” although the circumstances are still unclear, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.The U.K. is set to hold a general election on Dec. 12 and the last election campaign in 2017 was interrupted by attacks, including one that killed eight people in the same area of London.During the incident on Friday, armed officers burst into restaurants in the Borough Market area at London Bridge and urged diners to leave as fast as possible. They shouted “Out, out, out,” to people at the Black and Blue bar. Diners walked away with their hands on their heads. Nearby, police shouted to pedestrians to “run.”The Metropolitan Police said they’d been called to a stabbing and had detained a man at a premises near the bridge. Officers closed off the bridge and evacuated passers-by from the surrounding area.“We believe a number of people have been injured,” according to a statement posted on the Met’s Twitter feed. Sky reported five casualties in the incident, citing police sources.On the north bank of the River Thames, police officers shouted to pedestrians to move back from the bridge 100 meters, and then urged them to take shelter in any nearby building, shouting: “Move inside for your own safety.”The same area of London was the scene of a terrorist attack just a few days before the general election in June 2017 in which eight people were killed and 48 injured. Three Islamist terrorists drove a van at pedestrians on the bridge before arming themselves with knives and running into Borough Market, where they stabbed people in restaurants and pubs. Armed police responded and killed the attackers.Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was being kept updated on the incident, in a post on the the Twitter feed of his office.(Adds details from the scene from second paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Erin Roman in London at eroman16@bloomberg.net;Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net;Greg Ritchie in London at gritchie10@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sunil Kesur at skesur@bloomberg.net, Colin KeatingeFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Small plane crashes in Kingston, Ontario, killing seven: local police

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said it would send a team to investigate the crash. Seven individuals in the Piper PA-32 aircraft died and police will continue to work jointly with the TSB as the investigation continues, Kingston Police said http://bit.ly/2QZt8tp in a statement.

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California snow-bound highway reopens but storm snarls Thanksgiving travel

Interstate 5 through the Grapevine area, a mountain pass, was shut down in both directions early on Thursday morning and the California Highway Patrol said on Twitter it was working to clear stuck vehicles as snow kept falling. The highway, a major artery connecting Southern California to the rest of the state, was reopened later in the day, although more snow and rain were still forecast. The winter storm was expected to bring heavy snow in the mountains and high winds across much of the Western United States before moving toward the Great Plains late on Friday, the National Weather Service said.

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India announces $400 million loan for Sri Lanka, in support of new president

India will lend Sri Lanka $400 million for infrastructure projects, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday after talks with the island nation's new President Gotabaya Rajapaksa aimed at improving bilateral ties. Sri Lanka, located off the southern tip of India, has become an arena of competing influence between New Delhi and China, which has built ports, power stations and highways as part of President Xi Jinping's signature "Belt and Road Initiative", designed to boost trade and transport links across Asia.

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K-Pop Suicide Sparks a Reckoning on Revenge Porn, Sexual Assault

(Bloomberg) -- The suicide of a popular South Korean singer has prompted calls in the country to overhaul laws on sexual assault and to more harshly punish revenge porn.Koo Hara, 28, was found dead at her home in Seoul on Sunday. Her last message on Instagram showed her staring into a camera lens from beneath blankets on her bed with a message of “good night.” Police say a note was found at the scene in which she expressed hopelessness.Many in South Korea were already aware of her past that included assault by a former boyfriend who she alleged was threatening to release a sex video of her. The two most popular hashtags on social media in South Korea this week called for punishment of the ex-boyfriend and for the definition of sexual assault to be revamped.A petition filed with the president’s office demanding changes to laws had one quarter of a million signatures. Lawmakers said it is time to push forward measures stalled in Parliament that make it easier to impose harsh penalties on those who engage in revenge porn or clandestinely take sexually charged videos.Liberal lawmaker Lee Jung-mi of the minor Justice Party said in a social media post that Koo’s death shows that change is needed because the nation “cannot neglect illegal filming and circulation of videos.”Lee in September 2018 introduced a bill to revise how South Korea’s criminal law defines rape. She said recent verdicts on sexual crime show the current standards don’t focus on consent but how much “resistance” there was from the victim.President Moon Jae-in has called for a wide-ranging investigation of sex offenses linked to the entertainment industry and ordered the reopening of inquiries into past allegations. He issued a decree in June 2017 that set punishment of up to five years in prison, with the measure mostly pertaining to filming through hidden cameras.Moon has not commented on Koo’s death or on revamping sexual violence laws. On Nov. 19 he did comment on women’s social status saying, “It’s still quite a dark reality compared to the rest of the world. I can tell you that I will pay more attention on gender equality.”Some of those who are fighting for changes to the laws say they are frustrated with the pace of change.“The current justice system sends a message to women that it will never be able to protect them,” said Yun Dan-woo, a writer and and women’s rights activist.Recent CasesSome recent cases illustrate critics’ concerns. In May 2018, a male judge ruled that a man wasn’t guilty of raping a woman who walked to a motel with him, according to the Law Talk legal journal and local media. Surveillance video presented as evidence showed the man pulling the woman. The judge acknowledged she had rejected sex but ruled this wasn’t a case where she was in danger, the reports said.In a case in November, a male judge found a man not guilty of rape even though he had sex with a woman against her will. The judge ruled she gave consent by holding hands and giving the defendant an extra piece of meat at a restaurant, according to the legal journal and local media.Koo, who used the stage name HaRa, was a member of the group Kara, which had nearly a decade-long run as a top act in the notoriously fickle K-pop music industry. One of group’s biggest songs, “Step,” garnered nearly 100 million views on YouTube, helping Koo win fame in Japan, China and other major markets outside of Asia.In Koo’s case, a judge found her boyfriend guilty of assault yet acquitted him of illicitly filming Koo and trying to blackmail her. On Friday, dozens of people rallied in front of the Seoul District Court, demanding that the judge in the case resign.K-Pop’s Dark Side: Assault, Prostitution, Suicide, and Spy camsAlthough the laws on clandestine recording could be applied to revenge porn -- posting without permission explicit images of individuals that may be taken in acts including consensual sex -- that sort of prosecution is almost unheard of in South Korea. More than 40 U.S. states have laws banning the practice as do other countries.Proponents of more stringent measures say they want to act now while Koo’s death is fresh in the public mind and may give a push for change.“Korean society has this misconception of rape of always being done by some random monster who comes out of nowhere in a dark alley at night, which is why it doesn’t acknowledge that someone close and intimate is more likely to be the perpetrator,” said Claire Park, an activist at the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center.(Adds rally in on Friday in Seoul in the 14th paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Jihye Lee in Seoul at jlee2352@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Niluksi Koswanage at nkoswanage@bloomberg.net, ;Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz, Jodi SchneiderFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Iraqis shatter taboos in rage at Iran, but bloodshed may follow

By torching Tehran's consulates and slapping their muddy shoes against photographs of top Iranian officials, Iraqi protesters have shattered a taboo on public criticism of their influential eastern neighbour. In the latest expression of fury, protesters crowded around the Iranian consulate -- already emptied of diplomats -- in Iraq's shrine city of Najaf late Wednesday.

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Transgender paedophile sues NHS for refusing her reassignment surgery while she serves prison sentence

A transgender paedophile has sued the NHS for refusing her reassignment surgery after she transitioned from male to female while in prison.  The 60-year-old, known only as KK for legal reasons, is serving an indefinite sentence for public protection for making indecent photographs of children, and also has a previous conviction for sexual activity with a young girl. She has been in prison for over a decade and has been living as a woman for the last eight years, The High Court heard.  The prisoner claims the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust has unlawfully adopted a "de facto policy" of refusing to refer serving prisoners with gender dysphoria for gender reassignment surgery (GRS). But the trust argues that the reason KK was not referred was because "the treating clinicians at a world-class clinic for gender dysphoria did not consider it clinically appropriate to refer her for surgery". In brief | Transgender prisoners policy On Thursday, KK's barrister David Lock QC told a judge in London that the refusal to refer his client was "solely based on the fact that the claimant has lived as a woman in prison for the last eight years as opposed to living outside of prison". He submitted that the trust refused to make the referral over "concerns that there was a possibility that the claimant may not wish to continue to live as a woman following her release from prison". Mr Lock concluded that KK "was forced to endure her present level of distress by being denied otherwise clinically appropriate medical treatment because of the minority chance that she would later express regret at having had GRS". In written submissions, Jenni Richards QC, for the trust, argued that the court should not interfere in a decision involving "the application of clinical expertise in a developing area of medical practice". She said the number of patients affected by gender dysphoria was relatively small, adding: "The number of patients affected who are in prison is smaller still.  "The number of prisoners who are imprisoned as a result of sexual offences, which further complicates the clinical picture, will be still smaller." Ms Richards said GRS is "major, irreversible surgery which may destroy existing parts of a patient's body, personality and sexuality". She argued that "the fact that the claimant's real life experience (as a woman) has been acquired in prison ... is relevant to the determination of whether surgery is an appropriate intervention for her, at this stage and in her present circumstances". Mr Justice Supperstone, who is hearing the case, is expected to reserve his judgment.

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2 victims were killed and police fatally shot a man wearing a hoax explosive vest in a terrorist attack at London Bridge

London Metropolitan Police closed London Bridge and London Bridge Station is also closed. City of London police shot the man, who died at the scene.

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Teenage girl stuck in chimney rescued by Phoenix firefighters

The girl was trying to get into her house when she became stuck right above the flue of the chimney, authorities say.

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Shmoo Cake, Persians and Spudnuts: Touring Canada’s Regional Cuisine

By BY IAN AUSTEN from NYT World https://ift.tt/35P2Y0q

Final day for Help to Buy Isa applications

Nearly 260,000 properties have been bought using the Isa, Treasury figures show.

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2 K-pop stars were jailed for raping a drunk, unconscious woman in a scandal that shows the industry's dark underbelly

Choi Jong-hoon of FT Island was sentenced to five years and Jung Joon-young of Drug Restaurant was given six years by Seoul Central District Court.

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Unhappy Thanksgiving: Explosions at Texas chemical plant keep more than 50,000 out of their homes

More than 50,000 people in southeast Texas remain under evacuation orders on Thanksgiving after two powerful explosions at a chemical plant.

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Trump impeachment: White House 'can't find any record' of call which president insists exonerates him

The White House reportedly has no record of a phone call Donald Trump claims exonerates him over a scandal which is threatening to bring down his presidency.The US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified to congress earlier this month that Mr Trump had made clear to him in the call that there was “no quid pro quo” with Ukraine.

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We Aid the Growth of Chinese Tyranny to Our Eternal Shame

We can’t say we didn’t know.Reports of the repression of Muslims living in northwestern China have been leaking out for years in drips and drabs. Satellite photos picked up the construction of massive prison facilities in the Xinjiang province. The BBC was even invited into one of the “thought transformation camps,” from which inmates are released a few hours a week, to see the program of patriotic re-education. Inmates were frank with the Beeb’s reporters that religious activity — including prayer — was banned inside the building.Now, in the last week, a more complete picture of Beijing’s repression campaign has emerged. Leaked memos have revealed some of the details of China’s modernized and tech-supported religious persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang. These are the first Venona cables of our generation. They make certain what sharp observers must have guessed: China uses cutting-edge technology to identify, classify, and detain Muslims for re-education in the old-school argot of totalitarian Communism. President Xi Jinping has instructed the party members and public officials involved in this repression to show “absolutely no mercy” and make ample use of the “organs of dictatorship” to accomplish their mission.The leaked memos include lines that will be cited as exculpatory in the future — they show Xi counseling against proposals to “eradicate” Islam entirely. But the larger picture painted by the documents is one of state apparatus mobilized in the service of repression, aiming to make up for lost time in which Uighurs and Kazaks were allowed to worship, practice, and believe as they pleased. “The weapons of the people’s democratic dictatorship must be wielded without any hesitation or wavering,” Xi is quoted as saying.Distressingly, Xi could occasionally sound like some of the West’s “New Atheists” when talking about his fellow citizens. “People who are captured by religious extremism — male or female, old or young — have their consciences destroyed,” he says. They “lose their humanity and murder without blinking an eye.”There really isn’t any mistaking the strategy here: The ethnic balance of southern Xinjiang is to be transformed through the state-aided resettlement of Han Chinese in the region. While there are token concessions to the idea of allowing Uighurs to retain their religion, the use of Turkic languages has been discouraged. China is attempting to deprive Uighurs of their ethnolinguistic identity, the very rudiments of their nationality. These efforts have unsurprisingly inspired intermittent riots and violence in recent years, which have in turn been used to justify the expansion of the re-education camps.The most chilling aspect of this repression is the use of information technology. An incredible, Orwellian surveillance system is used to monitor the movements of Xinjiang’s people. The cameras are placed prominently throughout cities such as Kashgar and surrounding towns to remind people that they are being watched. Algorithms are deployed to facilitate the classification and selection of Uighurs for the camps.It’s a tyranny that we have helped to enable. China’s prosperity and technological progress, generated in no small part by its ability to trade in such high volume with the United States, have empowered its government to do this. Our desire to keep trading with China obliges the president of the United States to remain silent about this barbarity.In short, the leaked documents make clear that the West desperately needs to recover its ability to privilege political and moral aims over the immediate exigencies of the market, which can tolerate even this kind of repression and in fact may operate more smoothly alongside it. The power of China’s tyranny grows in parallel with our fatalism about it, and our determination to be consoled by its economic upside. But enough is enough.

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Thanksgiving storm blankets Southern California mountains with snow, delays holiday travel

A Thanksgiving Day storm brought a near definite end to the fire season in Southern California, as well as disruptive snow to people driving through the region's mountains."Thanksgiving started on a stormy note for many across Southern California as heavy rain and thunderstorms moved across the region. Many areas across the LA Basin picked up a quick 0.50 to 0.75 of an inch of rain this morning," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alyson Hoegg. "Due to the heavy rainfall across Southern California, flooding was reported in several areas around the Los Angeles Basin."The storm moved south from Northern California into Southern California, dousing the state in the early hours of Thursday morning. The National Weather Service issued a significant weather advisory for the coastal Los Angeles County, and a flood advisory for the county soon followed. Surrounding counties have been set on flood watch into Thursday evening.Flood advisories were issued for Ventura and Los Angeles counties on Thursday morning as rain rates reached 0.2 to 0.4 of an inch per hour with local rates of 0.5 of an inch per hour, according to the NWS. To put this into context, Los Angeles typically receives around an inch of rain in all of November.By Thursday afternoon, Long Beach had received 2.17 inches of rain, surpassing the 1970 record of 1.93 inches.Rainfall of 1-2 inches was widespread across coastal Southern California to the Inland Empire from the storm.The NWS warned of the possibility of mud and debris flows near the burn scars of the recent Getty Fire and Palisades Fire.The storm wrecked havoc on Thanksgiving Day travel, inundating roads and slowing speeds on the highways. Waters rose near San Diego, submerging roads in at least two feet of water in some areas.Hail fell near Goleta, a coastal city in southern Santa Barbara County, California, as a heavier burst of rain moved through the area.> Hail near Goleta (source: Noozhawk). Hail is possible anywhere today, along with wet roads and dangerous lightning. Allow extra travel time and stay extra alert on the roads, as conditions can change rapidly at any time. cawx LARain pic.twitter.com/v4R69mH62W> > -- NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) November 28, 2019The rain turned to snow at higher elevations of roughly 3,000 feet, shutting down roadways such as Interstate 5 at Parker Road and the Grapevine. The highway fully reopened by 3:15 p.m. PST.The Fort Tejon California Highway Patrol was kept busy through the morning, clearing stuck vehicles as snow continued to fall.Palmdale, California, an area just north of Los Angeles, received snow at the low elevation of 2,600 feet. Around 10:30 a.m. PST, a weather spotter reported 6 inches of snow to the NWS along with several large tree limbs down in Leona Valley, an area west of Palmdale.The Mt. Baldy Fire Department reported 10 inches of snow at the altitude of 5,000 feet on Mt. Baldy.This same storm system was pushing on across the West, bringing cold rain into parts of Nevada and Arizona and snowy conditions into high elevations from Utah to Montana prior to the end of the week.More than a foot of snow piled up over the Arizona mountains during Thursday night. Bellemont, Arizona, near Flagstaff, received 4 inches of snow in one hour. Multiple tornado warnings were issued early Friday morning in central Arizona.A second storm is forecast to follow into the weekend, bringing more rain to the lower elevations of California, while unloading snow over the mountains. Some of the Sierra Nevada region could see feet of snow pile up in the higher elevations.Combined, these two storms are expected to extinguish the fall fire season across California but also a start to a potentially wet winter.

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North Korea warns Japan's Abe may soon see real ballistic missile launch

North Korea's state media on Saturday lashed out at Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as an "imbecile and political dwarf" for calling Pyongyang's latest test of a large multiple-rocket launcher a ballistic missile launch and warned he may see a real one in the near future. North Korea fired two short-range projectiles into the sea off its east coast on Thursday in a fourth test of its new "super-large multiple-rocker launcher," with its North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressing "great satisfaction" over the latest test. In the wake of Pyongyang's firing, Abe said on Thursday that North Korea's missile launch was a threat to Japan and the international community, and that Tokyo would monitor the situation with its partners.

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Row over Chinese 5G equipment further strains U.S.-German relations

U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell called a German official's remarks this week "an insult to the thousands of American troops who helped ensure Germany's security."

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Trump's antics leaving Republicans 'disgusted and exhausted', says former GOP congressman

A former Republican congressman said he would “probably vote to impeach” Donald Trump if he were still serving in the US House of Representatives while suggesting the president's scandals are “infuriating" current GOP House members.Charlie Dent, a frequent critic of Mr Trump who resigned from Congress last year, said he has heard from several of his former Republican colleagues who are “absolutely disgusted and exhausted by the president’s behaviour”.

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Hawaii man arrested for 'extreme stalking' of family in Utah

U.S. prosecutors have arrested a Hawaii man they accuse of sending hundreds of unwanted service providers, including plumbers and prostitutes, to a Utah home.

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Rudy Giuliani was angling for a 6-figure business deal with a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor while pushing him to get political dirt on the Bidens

Rudy Giuliani said he had been approached by the Ukrainians with multiple business offers, but dismissed all of them and never accepted any money.

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North Korea test fires two missiles month before deadline for US to respond on talks

North Korea fired two "unidentified projectiles" on Thursday, Seoul said, as nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington remain deadlocked. The projectiles were fired eastwards from South Hamgyong province and came down in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. They added that the launch, the latest in a series by Pyongyang, was carried out at 16:59 pm local time - or the early hours on the east coast of the United States, during Thanksgiving, one of the country's biggest annual holidays. It was also one day short of the two-year anniversary of the North's first test of its Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile, which analysts say is capable of reaching the entire US mainland. Pyongyang is banned from firing ballistic missiles under UN Security Council resolutions, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that Thursday's launch was the latest in a series of violations.  "North Korea's repeated launches of ballistic missiles are a serious defiance to not only our country but also the international community," he told reporters in Tokyo. Thursday's launch came after Pyongyang fired what it called a "super-large multiple rocket launcher" system last month, and the JCS said the latest devices were presumed to be of a similar type. They flew 380 kilometres (236 miles) and reached a maximum altitude of 97 kilometres, the JCS added. Nuclear negotiations between the US and the North have been at a standstill since the Hanoi summit between Donald Trump, the US president, and Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, broke up in February. Pyongyang has since demanded Washington change its approach by the end of the year. "North Korea is growing anxious as its deadline approaches," said Shin Beom-chul of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. "That's why it's carrying out these provocations, which is the typical North Korean playbook to get more concessions from the US."

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AOC Raised More for Reelection Campaign Last Quarter Than All Other House Dems, Including Pelosi

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) raised more funds for her reelection campaign than all other Democrats in the House, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to federal elections commission data.Ocasio-Cortez raked in $1.42 million between July 1 and September 30, outstripping Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), who raised $1.26 million over the same period, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), who raised $1.26 million, the New York Post first reported. All three are up for reelection in 2020."This is very rare, unique," political consultant George Arzt told the Post. "I can’t recall anyone raising this much money during the first year in office."Contributions under $200 comprised most of the donations to Ocasio-Cortez, at $1.1 million in total contributions. Several Republican challengers are competing to oust the freshman congresswoman in her district, which comprises parts of Queens and the Bronx, but none of those challengers has so far matched her fundraising abilities.Arzt emphasized that Ocasio-Cortez "is a celebrity who gained attention from people across the country, and many on the left support her."While she outstripped Pelosi in fundraising over the summer, Pelosi has raised more funds than Ocasio-Cortez overall since January. The Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund, which helps other Democrats besides Pelosi, has raised over $11 million since the beginning of the year.The freshman New York congresswoman has already established herself as a fundraising powerhouse. In July, Politico reported that she hasn't been hurt by relying on small donations, instead channeling her star power in the progressive community to solicit contributions."There used to be a single path to fundraising success in DC — cultivating industry lobbyists," Jeff Hauser, the executive director of the Revolving Door Project, told Politico. "That path still exists, but it's not as lucrative as becoming a national icon for aggressively populist performance in office.

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Port Neches explosion: 60,000 evacuated from homes after Texas chemical plant blast

A series of explosions at a chemical plant forced some 60,000 people to be evacuated from the area surrounding Port Neches in Texas.The first blast occurred at 1am on Wednesday, injuring three workers who are now in hospital. TPC Group, which operates the plant, confirmed all other employees have been accounted for.

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Judge upholds charges that could put Weinstein away for life

A New York judge has rejected Harvey Weinstein’s bid to throw out the most serious charges in his sexual assault case, dealing a big blow to the disgraced movie mogul as he sought to limit the scope of his looming trial and any potential punishment. The ruling made public Wednesday clears the way for prosecutors to bolster their case with testimony from actress Anabella Sciorra who says Weinstein raped her in 1993 or 1994. In recent court filings, Weinstein’s lawyers objected to two of the five counts against him — both stemming from a charge called predatory sexual assault, which carries a maximum life sentence and requires prosecutors to show a pattern of misconduct.

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Iran supreme leader says 'very dangerous' plot foiled

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday said his sanctions-hit country had foiled a "very dangerous" plot after violent demonstrations triggered by a fuel price hike. New York-based Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, accused Tehran of "deliberately covering up" more than 100 deaths and thousands of arrests during the crackdown.

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'Sleepwalking toward climate catastrophe:' World must slash emissions immediately, UN report says

The world's nations must make steep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions immediately or risk missing the targets they’ve agreed on, a U.N. report says.

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Texas chemical fire rages for second day, thousands evacuated

The fiery blast inside a distillation column at the Port Neches, Texas, TPC Group facility on Wednesday injured three workers, blew locked doors off their hinges and spewed a plume of toxic chemicals for miles (kilometers). The plant manufactures petrochemicals used to make rubber and resins, and the volatile organic compounds in the explosion's smoke can lead to eye, nose and throat irritation, shortness of breath, headaches and nausea, the pollution regulator Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) said. The plant, 90 miles (145 km) east of Houston, has a long history of environmental violations and has been out of compliance with federal clean air laws for years, according to the Texas Tribune and state records; it was also declared a high priority violator by the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Native Americans Have Little to Celebrate on Thanksgiving

Bettmann/GettyWhile I have been researching and writing a Wampanoag-centered history of Plymouth Colony and the Thanksgiving holiday, my conversations with Native people have opened my eyes to some profound lessons about their past and present. These teachings have particular resonance this Thanksgiving season as the United States continues to struggle with white nationalism, the importance of distinguishing between truth and lies in democratic debate, and the place of indigenous people in a pluralistic country with a colonial foundation.Native people widely agree that the U.S. has yet to reckon with its history of white violence against their people. Instead, the country uses the myth of the First Thanksgiving to make it appear that Indians consented bloodlessly to colonialism.That myth, reinforced over and over again through grade school Thanksgiving pageants, holiday decorations, and television specials, is the only cameo Indians make in the colonial history curriculum in many American schools. Unfortunately, it is terrible history and even worse civics.The myth tells that supposedly friendly Indians (rarely identified by tribe) voluntarily gifted their country to the Pilgrims in order to lay the foundations for a white, Christian, democratic United States. As for why these Indians were so welcoming in the first place, this myth has nothing to say. It does not address the fact that the Wampanoags had already experienced years of slave raiding by European sailors before the appearance of the Mayflower, and that those contacts had introduced them to a devastating plague that more than halved their population and left them vulnerable to their inter-tribal enemies. Thus, when the Pilgrims arrived, the Wampanoags looked to them for a military alliance despite their wariness of English treachery.Why Thanksgiving Is Better Than ChristmasThe Thanksgiving Myth also evades the fact that the celebrated peace between the Wampanoags and Plymouth was rife with tensions from the start and ultimately degenerated into a bloody war. During the celebrated 50 years of peace following the First Thanksgiving, the Wampanoags complained endlessly about the English encroaching on their land, undermining their political systems, and asserting their jurisdiction over purely Indian affairs.Not coincidentally, there were recurrent war scares during these years as Native leaders reached across tribal lines to make common cause against their common colonial threat. The tension finally broke in King Philip’s War of 1675-76, which led to the deaths of thousands of Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, and other indigenous people, and the enslavement of thousands more. The Thanksgiving Myth ignores this consequence of the Pilgrim-Wampanoag alliance, though clashes of this sort were a basic feature of American colonial history.Some American history courses might teach about King Philip’s War, but few have anything to say about how many Wampanoags and other Native New Englanders survived after their military subjugation. Over the following centuries, they endured white society’s reduction of them and their children to indentured servitude and the ongoing occupation of their lands. They also suffered white people denying they were Indians at all based on the intermarriages and cultural adjustments they had made to survive under white domination. In other words, Americans are rarely taught the incredible achievement that American Indians are still here, every bit as much a part of the modern world as everyone else.Indigenous people also widely bemoan that Americans’ lack of historical understanding about the Native American contributes to a marked lack of recognition of their place in the country, a general lack of compassion for their historic struggles, and widespread unawareness about their ongoing fights for sovereignty and cultural self-determination. Indeed, many of them feel invisible to the general public.Worse still, every Thanksgiving season the country reduces historic Indians and their traumas to caricature, as if to say that Native Americans’ only role in the national culture is to concede to colonialism and then go away.Lest we diminish the impact of these messages, consider the experience of a young Wampanoag woman who told me that when she was in kindergarten, the lone Indian in her class, her teacher cast her as Chief Massasoit in a Thanksgiving pageant and had her sing with her classmates “This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land.” Reflecting on the moment as an adult, the cruel irony was not lost on her. As a child, she only knew enough to be embarrassed about it.The Trump era has cast into relief some of the dark consequences of this amnesia and ignorance. It includes the government’s environmental racism and disregard of Native sovereignty evident in the battle over the Keystone Pipeline. It includes the ongoing use of racist stereotypes of indigenous people in sports mascots. It includes President Donald Trump’s derision of Sen. Elizabeth Warren as Pocahontas, which feeds on the widespread assumption that it is ludicrous for someone with a light (or dark) complexion leading a modern life to have Native heritage and want to claim it.Trump’s juvenile trolling of Warren also plays on the widespread ignorance of the American public about the difference between being an enrolled member of an Indian tribe (which Warren is not) and being a descendant of Native people (which Warren is). Such thinking is part of a long American tradition of white people insisting that Indians should disappear, the better to reduce the numbers of them laying claim to the land.The belief that Indians do not matter also contributed to Trump posing a delegation of Navajo leaders visiting the White House in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson, the proponent of Indian Removal, and then making light on Twitter about the historic massacre of Wounded Knee.Not least of all, the widespread belief that modern Indians cannot be authentic and have no legitimate historic rights has contributed to a recent decision by Trump’s Department of the Interior to revoke a 2007 federal ruling that restored reservation lands to the Mashpee Wampanoags of Cape Cod, descendants of the very people who welcomed the Pilgrims.No wonder, then, that many Native people, including the Wampanoags, charge that their fellow Americans lack sufficient gratitude for what they’ve sacrificed for the country. This feeling of victimhood is especially poignant given that many Native communities still suffer extraordinarily high levels of poverty, with all of its associated ills, while living in the shadow of sometimes garish wealth. Wampanoag people in southeastern New England, for instance, are confronted daily with the sight of outsiders’ extravagant coastal estates, occupied for only six or eight weeks in summer, built atop places where the ancestors are buried and where some of them fished, hunted, and gathered within memory. The image sickens and depresses. And yet there is no escaping it or the sense that other Americans revel in it.In Thanksgiving season, one cannot drive past neighbors’ lawns or go to the store without confronting happy Pilgrim and Indian decorations, or turn on the television, radio, or computer without being bombarded with Pilgrim and Indian themes. Some schools continue to have children, including Native children, perform Thanksgiving pageants. For these reasons and more, the United New England Indians have held a National Day of Mourning in Plymouth every Thanksgiving Day since 1970, which is attended by indigenous people from throughout the hemisphere. They do not see American colonialism as something to celebrate.Part of what I’ve learned through my conversations with Wampanoag people is that achieving some measure of repair and signaling that Americans value their Native countrymen and women requires compassion, gratitude, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable history. Taking these steps might also help us, collectively, to restore basic dignity, intelligence, and humanity to our civic culture. 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.

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Lawsuit: Alabama Sheriff 'Big John' Williams shot in parking lot 'without provocation'

Suspect William Chase Johnson faces murder charges. He is the son of a Montgomery County Sheriff's Office deputy.

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