Nashville police: RV explosion was ‘intentional act’

Former FBI special agent John Iannarelli discusses tactics law enforcement will use during the investigation.

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  • Congress is 'laughing' at Trump's 'bizarre, embarrassing' COVID-19 relief capitulation, Politico suggests

    President Trump complained for nearly a week about a "disgraceful" $2.3 trillion COVID-19 relief and 2021 spending package Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin helped negotiate, "only to sign it and get nothing in return?" Politico's Playbook editors Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer marveled Monday morning. "Trump got taken to the cleaners."After this "bizarre, embarrassing episode," all Trump proved is that "he had no discernible strategy and no hand to play," Palmer and Sherman write. "He folded, and got nothing besides a few days of attention and chaos. ... Zip. Zero. Zilch." Trump issued a statement insisting he got promises out of Congress, they note, but "he'll never get the spending rescissions he's asking for — like, zero chance" — and his support for a vote on $2,000 stimulus checks will only "split the Republican Party on the way out the door.""This is probably the most fitting coda to Trump's presidency, and a neat encapsulation of his relationship with Congress," Palmer and Sherman argue. "He never cared to understand the place and was disengaged from its work. They'll be laughing — er, scratching their heads — at your genius about this one for a while, Mr. President."Palmer also noted the terrible optics of Trump sitting on relief checks, unemployment benefits, and rental aid from his golf resort in Palm Beach, while Vice President Mike Pence is on a skiing vacation in Vail, Colorado, and Mnuchin took a private jet down to his vacation home in a Mexican resort near Cabo.> I get it's the holidays ... but Trump being in Mar-a-Lago, Pence being in Vail & Mnuchin being in Mexico is such a dramatic split screen from the pain and suffering that so many Americans are feeling right now when it comes to just being able to afford food and housing.> > — Anna Palmer (@apalmerdc) December 28, 2020Maybe there's something fitting about that, too.More stories from theweek.com Congress signals it will mostly ignore Trump's post-signing demands on $2.3 trillion spending package New York Post bluntly tells Trump to 'stop the insanity' and end his 'undemocratic coup' attempt The best movies of 2020

  • Disney employee, 33, says she got Covid vaccine – as hospital admits giving doses to non-healthcare workers

    Disney employee says in a now-removed Facebook post that husband’s aunt was a ‘big deal’ at Los Angeles hospital

  • Saudi women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul sentenced to five and a half years in prison

    A prominent Saudi Arabian activist who campaigned for the right to drive was sentenced to nearly six years in jail today, despite international criticism of her trial and claims she had been tortured. Loujain al-Hathloul, 31, was arrested with a dozen other women’s rights campaigners in 2018, even as the Gulf kingdom lifted the ban on women driving and pledged to relax patriarchal male guardianship laws. A judge in a Saudi terrorism court in Riyadh on Monday sentenced her to five years and eight months on charges related to her activism, including seeking to change the Saudi political system conspiring with foreign governments and harming national security. The judge insisted that she had confessed to the allegations and rejected Ms Hathloul’s claims that she was tortured with water-boarding, electric shocks and had been threatened with rape after her arrest. She spent eight months in solitary confinement last year and in October went on hunger strike in protest at her treatment. However, the court suspended two years and 10 months of her sentence, which Ms Hathloul’s sister Lina said could see her released early next year, due to time already spent behind bars.

  • Azerbaijan reports attack on its troops in Nagorno-Karabakh

    Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said Monday its army units have been attacked by “an illegal Armenian armed group" in Nagorno-Karabakh, killing one Azerbaijani serviceman and wounding another. The statement comes just hours after the Armenian Defense Ministry denied media reports of fighting in the neighboring Hadrut region and said the ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh were “strictly observing” the cease-fire. Neither Armenian or Nagorno-Karabakh officials have so far commented on Azerbaijan's statement.

  • Novavax starts late-stage trial of COVID-19 vaccine in United States

    Novavax Inc has begun a large late-stage study of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, the drug developer said on Monday, after delaying the trial twice due to issues in scaling up the manufacturing process. It will enroll up to 30,000 volunteers across about 115 sites in the United States and Mexico, with two-thirds of them receiving the shot 21 days apart and the rest getting placebo, the company said. Novavax lags behind other drugmakers in the global race for COVID-19 vaccine, with shots from Pfizer and Moderna authorized for emergency use in the United States.

  • Mnuchin, GOP lawmakers reportedly convinced Trump to sign COVID-19 relief bill by flattering him

    President Trump's allies reportedly convinced him to finally sign Congress' bipartisan COVID-19 relief bill mostly by playing it cool, Axios reports.Per Axios, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) didn't try to force Trump's hand, but instead took a more subtle approach, which included indulging his rants and highlighting several items he could count as "wins" even without altering the bill. They also reportedly dropped hints about what signing the bill would mean for his legacy, reminded him he didn't want to hurt people, and convinced him he had proven himself "to be a fighter" who had "gotten all there was to get" from the funding package.After a few days and a round of golf with Graham, their work paid off. During a phone call with McCarthy and Mnuchin on Sunday, the president made his decision. "This is good," Trump reportedly said. "I should sign this." Read more at Axios.More stories from theweek.com Congress signals it will mostly ignore Trump's post-signing demands on $2.3 trillion spending package Congress is 'laughing' at Trump's 'bizarre, embarrassing' COVID-19 relief capitulation, Politico suggests New York Post bluntly tells Trump to 'stop the insanity' and end his 'undemocratic coup' attempt

  • A Cheerleader's Vulgar Message Prompts a First Amendment Showdown

    WASHINGTON -- It was a Saturday in the spring of 2017, and a ninth grade student in Pennsylvania was having a bad day. She had just learned that she had failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad and would remain on junior varsity.The student expressed her frustration on social media, sending a message on Snapchat to about 250 friends. The message included an image of the student and a friend with their middle fingers raised, along with text expressing a similar sentiment. Using a curse word four times, the student expressed her dissatisfaction with "school," "softball," "cheer" and "everything."Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York TimesThough Snapchat messages are ephemeral by design, another student took a screenshot of this one and showed it to her mother, a coach. The school suspended the student from cheerleading for a year, saying the punishment was needed to "avoid chaos" and maintain a "teamlike environment."The student sued the school district, winning a sweeping victory in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Philadelphia. The court said the First Amendment did not allow public schools to punish students for speech outside school grounds.Next month, at its first private conference after the holiday break, the Supreme Court will consider whether to hear the case, Mahanoy Area School District v. BL, No. 20-255. The 3rd Circuit's ruling is in tension with decisions from several other courts, and such splits often invite Supreme Court review.In urging the justices to hear the case, the school district said administrators around the nation needed a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court on their power to discipline students for what they say away from school."The question presented recurs constantly and has become even more urgent as COVID-19 has forced schools to operate online," a brief for the school district said. "Only this court can resolve this threshold First Amendment question bedeviling the nation's nearly 100,000 public schools."Justin Driver, a law professor at Yale and author of "The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court and the Battle for the American Mind," agreed with the school district, to a point."It is difficult to exaggerate the stakes of this constitutional question," he said. But he added that schools had no business telling students what they could say when they were not in school."In the modern era, a tremendous percentage of minors' speech occurs off campus but online," he said. "Judicial decisions that permit schools to regulate off-campus speech that criticizes public schools are antithetical to the First Amendment. Such decisions empower schools to reach into any student's home and declare critical statements verboten, something that should deeply alarm all Americans."The key precedent is from a different era. In 1969, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court allowed students to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War but said disruptive speech, at least on school grounds, could be punished.Making distinctions between what students say on campus and off was easier in 1969, before the rise of social media. These days, most courts have allowed public schools to discipline students for social media posts so long as they are linked to school activities and threaten to disrupt them.A divided three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit took a different approach, announcing that a categorical rule would seem to limit the ability of public schools to address many kinds of disturbing speech by students on social media, including racist threats and cyberbullying.In a concurring opinion, Judge Thomas L. Ambro wrote that he would have ruled for the student on narrower grounds. It would have been enough, he said, to say that her speech was protected by the First Amendment because it did not disrupt school activities. The majority was wrong, he said, to protect all off-campus speech.In a brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the school district's appeal, the Pennsylvania School Boards Association said the line the 3rd Circuit had drawn was too crude."Whether a disruptive or harmful tweet is sent from the school cafeteria or after the student has crossed the street on her walk home, it has the same impact," the brief said. "The 3rd Circuit's formalistic rule renders schools powerless whenever a hateful message is launched from off campus."The student, represented by lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Supreme Court that the First Amendment protected her "colorful expression of frustration, made in an ephemeral Snapchat on her personal social media, on a weekend, off campus, containing no threat or harassment or mention of her school, and that did not cause or threaten any disruption of her school."The brief focused on that last point, and it did not spend much time defending the 3rd Circuit's broader approach.The Supreme Court has a reputation for being protective of First Amendment rights. Chief Justice John Roberts, in an appearance at a law school last year, described himself as "probably the most aggressive defender of the First Amendment on the court now."But the court has been methodically cutting back on students' First Amendment rights since the Tinker decision in 1969. And in the court's last major decision on students' free speech, in 2007, Roberts wrote the majority opinion, siding with a principal who had suspended a student for displaying a banner that said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."Driver said that suggested a blind spot."There is at least one major area where Chief Justice Roberts' defense of the First Amendment is notably lax: student speech," he said. "I fervently hope that Roberts will regain his fondness for the First Amendment when the court finally resolves this urgent question."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

  • Three cases of 'UK variant' of coronavirus detected in South Korea

    Three cases of a particularly infectious coronavirus variant that recently emerged in Britain have been confirmed in South Korea, health authorities said on Monday. The three individuals are members of a London-based family who arrived in the country on December 22, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. They have been placed in isolation since testing positive for Covid-19 on arrival, the KDCA statement said. The new strain of the virus emerged earlier this month in Britain and has already reached several European countries, as well as Canada, Jordan and Japan. The new strain, which experts fear is more contagious, prompted more than 50 countries to impose travel restrictions on Britain. South Korea was among them and has barred flights from Britain until the end of the year. South Korean authorities are also looking into the case of an elderly South Korean man who posthumously tested positive for Covid-19 after returning from Britain earlier this month. The announcement came as a third wave of the virus grips the country, with a resurgence centred on the greater Seoul area seeing daily cases climb to over 1,000 several times this month despite stricter distancing measures.

  • Iran says Pfizer vaccine batch expected from US benefactors

    An unidentified group of U.S.-based philanthropists plans to send 150,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to Iran in the coming weeks, Iranian media reported Monday, in a step that could bring the hardest-hit country in the Middle East closer to inoculating its citizens against the coronavirus. It quoted the chief of the country's Red Crescent Society as saying he expects the vaccine created by American drug maker Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech to be imported by Jan. 19 “based on coordination with a group of benefactors in the U.S." Iran has struggled to stem the worst virus outbreak in the Middle East, which has infected over 1.2 million people and killed nearly 55,000.

  • 15 of the Most Popular Products Purchased by Clever Readers in 2020

    Unsurprisingly, you invested in sleeping, cleaning, and organizingOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • India's Punjab looking into whether protesting farmers sabotaged telecom infrastructure

    Authorities in India's northern state of Punjab are investigating whether protesting farmers were disrupting power supply to hundreds of telecom towers, a state official said on Monday, amid protests over new farm laws. "We have told the police to track all those involved in sabotaging the infrastructure," a senior official in the Punjab state government told Reuters on condition of anonymity. A senior Punjab state police official said the power supply was disrupted to several telecom towers in the state, mainly ones owned by Jio, the telecommunications arm of Reliance Industries.

  • The Coming Global Backlash against China

    The following is an adapted excerpt from Helen Raleigh’s new book, Backlash: How China’s Aggression Has Backfired.The Chinese Communist Party’s leader, Xi Jinping, is the most powerful leader in Communist China since Chairman Mao. Yet, Xi’s outward strongman image is a veneer over his inner insecurity. When he came into power in late 2012, China’s economy had slowed down from double-digit growth to single-digit growth; the mass working-age population, which had been the engine of China’s economic growth, has begun to decline. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington, D.C.–based think tank, projects that by 2030, “China will round out its thinning labor force by hiring workers from abroad.” At the same time, according to Mark Haas, a political-science professor at Duquesne University, “China alone in 2050 will have more than 329 million people over 65.” Consequently, China is expected to be the first major economy that will grow older before it achieves widespread prosperity.Without its demographic dividend and with an aging population, China’s economic growth will further slow down at the time when the government needs to keep its growing middle class from demanding a level of political freedom matching their newfound wealth. An aging population would also force the government to allocate more national resources for elder care and social services, which means there will be fewer resources to compete against the U.S. This is probably one of the most important reasons why Xi feels that he has to abandon the so-called strategic-patience guidance issued by Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader of China from 1978 to 1997, who instructed his comrades to bide their time and avoid any confrontation with powerful external forces until China was in a much stronger position both economically and militarily.Xi, however, believes that China can’t afford to bide its time any longer. It must replace the liberal world order with a Sino-centric world order before China’s population becomes too old and the Chinese economy becomes too stagnant. However, rather than furthering economic reform and opening up more sectors to foreign investment and competition to strengthen its economy, Xi chose to hide China’s weaknesses and exaggerate China’s economic strengths. He emphasizes self-reliance and utilizing China’s resources to pump up “national champions,” or state-owned enterprises that could compete against global leaders in strategic sectors. Xi feels that nationalism is his new trump card, something he can use to motivate, excite, and unite a billion people all the while strengthening the CCP’s rule over them. Others say that his inward-looking nationalist policies are leading China to the very middle-income trap -- in which China’s level of development stalls out before reaching the heights of other modern industrial nations -- that Xi and his predecessors tried very hard to avoid.Yet the more the Chinese economy slows down, the more Xi feels the need to project a strongman image both abroad and, especially, at home. As Wang Gungwu and Zheng Yongnian, two Chinese scholars, wrote in China and the New International Order, this dynamic has deep roots in Chinese history: “China’s internal order was so closely related to her international order that one could not long survive without the other; when the barbarians were not submissive abroad, rebels might more easily arise within. Most dynasties collapsed under the twin blows of inside disorder and outside calamity, nei luan wai huang, that is, domestic rebellion and foreign invasion.”Xi is keenly aware that he is vulnerable to internal rebellion. He has purged more than 1.5 million government officials, military leaders, and party elites. His trade war with the U.S. is deeply unpopular inside China because it has caused economic pains such as rising unemployment, closing of factories, and the shifting of the global supply chain out of China. Xi knows very well that if he shows any signs of weakness, he may end up like his political rival, Bo Xilai -- a princeling who is currently languishing in a notorious Chinese prison for high-level party officials.In addition, Xi saw former U.S. President Obama as a “weak” leader who led a nation that was on its way to inevitable decline, which opened up an unprecedented opportunity for China. Xi also has certain milestones he wants to reach: In 2021, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, and in 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of Communist China. Xi wants to do something big to cement his place in history when he reaches these milestones. Therefore, in his mind, the era of hiding strength and biding time is over. He wants to show the world a new set of policies, actions, and attitudes that match China’s powerful status.For a while, Xi was succeeding. Internally, he ruthlessly cracked down on religious believers, political dissenters, party officials, and business elites. He also built a mass surveillance state that turned the dystopian nightmare imagined by George Orwell’s 1984 into a reality. Internationally, he imposed his strong will on businesses and nations big and small through his signature project “One Belt and One Road.” The way Xi sees it, the more other countries become economically dependent on China, the more he can dominate them peacefully without having to use force. One commentator has observed that Xi “resembles a clenched fist. At home, he is clenching hard to assert his control. To the outside world, he is a hard-thrusting force determined to get his way.” Xi’s fist has conditioned many nations including the Western democracies to believe that China is stronger than it actually is and that China’s global dominance is inevitable. Therefore, few are willing to challenge China’s human-rights violations at home and its assertive behavior abroad.But even the most powerful emperor can fly too close to the sun. The dissenting voices inside China are getting louder, while global backlash against China reached new heights in 2019. Then the 2020 coronavirus outbreak stripped the facade of Xi’s powerful image, revealed deep flaws within the CCP’s dictatorial political system, caused immense anger and frustration among Chinese people, brought serious detriments to China’s prestigious international image, and brought China’s seemingly unstoppable rise to a halt. As the prominent Hong Kong entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has written, “The more Mr. Xi pursues his authoritarian agenda, the more distrust he will sow at home and abroad. Far from transforming Beijing into the world’s leading superpower, his policies will instead keep China from taking its rightful place of honor in a peaceful, modern and integrated world.” Xi has misread the situation, overplayed his hand, and his aggressive policies at home and abroad have backfired, proving the saying: Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

  • Florida coronavirus death toll: Latest Covid-19 figures

    State’s Trump-supporting governor refused to introduce mask mandate

  • Authorities identify Nashville bomber, say he died in Friday's explosion

    Officials in Nashville said Sunday that Anthony Quinn Warner of nearby Antioch, Tennessee, is believed to be responsible for blowing up an RV in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning, and he is the only one who died in the blast. Warner, 63, was a self-employed IT consultant who kept to himself and rarely left his house, neighbors said. His motive is not known, and investigators are trying to figure out if he intentionally targeted the AT&T building he parked near and badly damaged, knocking out cellphone and internet communications to several Southern states. The explosion also damaged about 40 other buildings.> This is video of Friday morning's explosion recorded by an MNPD camera at 2nd Ave N & Commerce St. pic.twitter.com/3vaXhoUOAR> > — Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) December 28, 2020State, federal, and local officials identified Warner just 60 hours after the explosion. They positively identified his remains through DNA recovered from the scene, a VIN number from the RV uncovered in the wreckage, and tips from people who recognized the RV that had long been parked outside Warner's house. They have not yet determined what was used to cause the huge blast.Earlier Sunday, five of the police officers who responded to calls about the RV early Christmas morning recounted their efforts to evacuate people from nearby buildings as a recording from the RV counted down 15 minutes until an impending blast. "That's stuff that I'll never forget, the sound of the announcement saying ... 'Evacuate now,'" said Amanda Topping, one of five officers. "Just odd. And I'm pacing back and forth because I kept on having to turn pedestrians around."Just before the blast, the warning was replaced by a recording of the 1964 Petula Clark hit "Downtown." The part of the song that echoed down Second Avenue, The Tennessean reports, was the beginning: "When you're alone and life is making you lonely you can always go downtown. When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry seems to help, I know."Warner did not have any known political ideologies or any known presence on social media. "To describe him as a recluse would be an excellent word," said Rick Laude, a neighbor since 2010. He appears to have gotten his affairs in order over the past few months. In November, he transferred the deed to his house to a woman in California, and earlier this month he informed a longtime client he would no longer work for them.More stories from theweek.com Congress signals it will mostly ignore Trump's post-signing demands on $2.3 trillion spending package Congress is 'laughing' at Trump's 'bizarre, embarrassing' COVID-19 relief capitulation, Politico suggests New York Post bluntly tells Trump to 'stop the insanity' and end his 'undemocratic coup' attempt

  • At least 11 climbers dead in blizzards and avalanche on Iranian mountain

    At least 11 hikers died over the weekend in the mountain range north of Tehran when a series of avalanches were triggered by blizzards and heavy snowfall, Iran’s Red Crescent rescue group said. The rescue efforts, which began on Friday when the first two deaths were reported, intensified over the weekend as more were reported missing. State television broadcast footage of the helicopter rescue mission searching for bodies and survivors on the Tochal and Kolakchal peaks; as well as Red Crescent personnel carrying a body on a stretcher along a snowy mountainside. Ten people had been killed on the mountain and one died in hospital after being rescued, Mehdi Valipour, head of emergency operations at Iran’s Red Crescent, was quoted as saying by state broadcaster IRIB. Tehran lies at the foot of the Alborz mountain range, a popular weekend attraction for hiking and climbing. According to state TV, the avalanches struck in four different areas. The Iranian Red Crescent said the rescue efforts were complicated by the bad weather. On Friday, Iranian media reported that more than 100 people were estimated to be stuck in the avalanche. Shahin Fathi, the managing director of the Red Crescent, told BBC Persian that as of Saturday, families were still reporting seven people missing. “We may still have injuries in the Kolakchal area, but there are no exact statistics," said Mr Fathi on Sunday. The Mountaineering Meteorological channel on Telegram warned people in Tehran not to go to the mountains because of the possibility of an avalanche in Alborz.

  • Pope formally strips Vatican secretariat of state of assets

    Pope Francis has formally stripped the Vatican secretariat of state of its financial assets and real estate holdings following its bungled management of hundreds of millions of euros in donations and investments that are now the subject of a corruption investigation. Francis signed a new law over the weekend ordering the secretariat of state to complete the transfer of all its holdings to another Vatican office by Feb. 4. The law also calls for all donations to the pope — the Peter’s Pence collections from the faithful as well as other donations that had been managed by the secretariat of state — to be held and managed by the Vatican’s treasury office as separate funds that are accounted for in the Holy See’s consolidated budget.

  • Execution delayed for only woman on federal death row

    A U.S. federal judge has further delayed the execution of the only woman on federal death row. The judge said the Justice Department broke the law when it rescheduled convicted murderer Lisa Montgomery’s execution date to January 12th. Montgomery was convicted in 2007 of kidnapping and strangling a pregnant woman to death in Missouri. Montgomery’s lawyers say their client has long suffered from severe mental illness and was the victim of sexual assault. In November, the federal judge gave her lawyers until Dec. 24 to file the clemency request and granted Montgomery a stay of execution until Dec. 31. Then, the Bureau of Prisons announced it was rescheduling her execution to Jan. 12, 2021. But the judge on Thursday sided with Montgomery's lawyers, who argued that federal regulations bar the Bureau from rescheduling an execution during a stay period. Montgomery’s execution could now be pushed back until after President-elect Joe Biden - who opposes the death penalty - takes office.

  • Philippines troops, ministers get COVID-19 vaccine before approval

    Some Philippine soldiers and cabinet ministers have already received COVID-19 vaccine injections, officials said on Monday, despite an absence of regulatory approval that the country's health ministry said was vital to ensure safety. Interior minister, Eduardo Ano, said some cabinet members have already received COVID-19 vaccines and army chief, Lieutenant General Cirilito Sobejana, said some troops had been vaccinated but the number was not large. Neither said what brand of vaccine was administered.

  • Here’s how Republicans plan to challenge Biden’s Electoral College win

    A small group of House Republicans are reportedly planning to contest the certification of Joe Biden’s election. The ratification of the presidential election results is usually uneventful. A small group of House Republicans are reportedly planning to contest the certification of some states’ Electoral College votes, which will be presided over by Vice President Mike Pence.

  • Best 33-Inch-Wide Refrigerators From Consumer Reports' Tests

    If your kitchen cabinetry doesn’t have the standard 36-inch-wide slot for a refrigerator, it can be tough to find one that fits. Our research shows that plenty of people are interested in 33-inch...