Today's News: October 16, 2019

World News

Reuters Sources: US Hit Iran With Cyberstrike After Saudi Oil Attack
Newsmax – The United States carried out a secret cyber operation against Iran in the wake of the Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, which Washington and Riyadh blame on Tehran, two U.S. officials tell Reuters.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the operation took place in late September and took aim at Tehran’s ability to spread “propaganda.”
One of the officials said the strike affected physical hardware, but did not provide further details.
The attack highlights how President Donald Trump’s administration has been trying to counter what it sees as Iranian aggression without spiraling into a broader conflict.
Asked about Reuters reporting on Wednesday, Iran’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi said: “They must have dreamt it,” Fars news agency reported.
The U.S. strike appears more limited than other such operations against Iran this year after the downing of an American drone in June and an alleged attack by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on oil tankers in the Gulf in May.
Turkey defies calls for a ceasefire, says offensive will end only if Kurdish fighters leave border area
Chicago Tribune – As Russia and the United States each launched diplomatic forays to end Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday defied pressure for a ceasefire and said the only way the offensive would end was if Syrian Kurdish fighters leave a designated border area “by tonight.”
Russia said it was working to prevent a conflict between Turkish troops and Syrian government forces that have moved in to Kurdish-held areas in the northeast. The Kurdish administration invited the Syrian military in to shield it from the Turkish attack.
A day ahead of a visit by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence to Ankara, tasked with negotiating out an end to the attack, the Kremlin said Erdogan had accepted an invitation by Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Russia “in coming days” to discuss Syria.
North Korea’s Kim rides white horse in show of sanctions defiance
Al Jazeera – Kim Jong Un vowed to overcome US-led sanctions imposed on North Korea as state media on Wednesday shared evocative propaganda images of him riding a white horse across snow-covered landscapes on Mount Paektu, the Korean peninsula’s highest peak.
The location and animal are both symbols associated with the Kim family’s dynastic rule. Kim has previously visited Mt Paektu before making major decisions such as the 2013 execution of his powerful uncle and his 2018 decision to embark on diplomacy with Seoul and Washington.
“His march on horseback in Mt Paektu is a great event of weighty importance in the history of the Korean revolution,” KCNA said.
Egypt archaeologists find 20 ancient coffins near Luxor
BBC – Archaeologists have found more than 20 ancient wooden coffins near the Egyptian city of Luxor, the country’s antiquities ministry says.
The coffins, whose brightly-coloured decorations are still visible, were uncovered at the Theban necropolis of Asasif, on the River Nile’s west bank.
They were in two layers, with the ones on top across those below.
The ministry described the discovery as “one of the largest and most important” in recent years.
More details will be released at a news conference on Saturday.

U.S. News, Politics & Government

Jury awards Sandy Hook father $450,000 for defamation by local conspiracy theorist
Madison State Journal – A Dane County jury on Tuesday decided a village of Oregon conspiracy theorist must pay the father of a boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings $450,000 for falsely claiming that the father circulated fabricated copies of his son’s death certificate.
It took the jury nearly four hours to decide on the amount James Fetzer must pay Leonard Pozner, whose son, Noah, 6, was the youngest victim of the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. The award follows Circuit Judge Frank Remington’s ruling in June that Fetzer defamed Pozner with four false statements about the death certificate. The statements appeared in a book Fetzer co-authored and edited, and in his blog.
In his own statement after the jury delivered its decision, Pozner thanked the jury “for recognizing the pain and terror that Mr. Fetzer has purposefully inflicted on me and on other victims of these horrific mass casualty events, like the Sandy Hook shooting,” and emphasized that his case was not about First Amendment protections.
“Mr. Fetzer has the right to believe that Sandy Hook never happened,” he said. “He has the right to express his ignorance. This award, however, further illustrates the difference between the right of people like Mr. Fetzer to be wrong and the right of victims like myself and my child to be free from defamation, free from harassment and free from the intentional infliction of terror.”
Fetzer called the damages amount “absurd” and said he would appeal.
Rising star Warren weathers attacks at Democratic White House debate
AFP – Westerville (United States) (AFP) – Surging White House hopeful Elizabeth Warren faced a barrage of attacks from fellow Democrats at the party’s fourth 2020 debate Tuesday, cementing her status as a frontrunner in the race to challenge Donald Trump.
The president himself loomed large as the dozen Democratic contenders trained their fire on him, calling for his impeachment and assailing a Syria troop pullout that Joe Biden slammed as “shameful.”
“The impeachment must go forward,” thundered Warren, the progressive senator who is neck and neck with former vice president Biden at the head of the 2020 nomination race — a stance loudly echoed by her fellow Democrats on stage.
Washington’s impeachment brawl has dominated US politics for weeks, centered on Trump’s effort to press Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden.
Dragged into the scandal, Biden made clear he believes Trump should be impeached — and pushed back hard on the president’s charge he himself intervened in Ukraine to protect his son Hunter.
“My son did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong,” Biden said, when asked about his son’s employment with a Ukrainian company, which even some Democrats say held the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The Ukraine scandal thrust Biden into the spotlight, while 78-year-old liberal Senator Bernie Sanders — the other heavyweight in the race — was under pressure to project fortitude two weeks after being sidelined by a mild heart attack.
But it was Warren who weathered the sharpest attacks from her fellow Democrats — on everything from kitchen-sink issues such as healthcare and taxation, to foreign policy and even business automation.
Beto O’Rourke Post-Debate: ‘I’m Not Going to Confiscate AR-15s’
Breitbart – After using precious moments in the Democrat debate to emphasize plans to take away AR-15s and AK-47s, Beto O’Rourke told Breitbart News, “I’m not going to confiscate AR-15s.”
During the debate, O’Rourke painted a pro-confiscation picture when asked what would happen to AR-15 owners who refused to hand over their guns. He said, “If someone does not turn an AR-15 or an AK-47, one of these weapons of war, or brings it out in public and brandishes it, in an attempt to intimidate…then that weapon will be taken from them. If they persist, there will be other consequences from law enforcement.”
His debate emphasis on confiscation came less than a month after CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked O’Rourke if he supported confiscation and O’Rourke responded, “Yes,” then stressed that his confiscatory focus is on AR-15s and AK-47s.
O’Rourke’s debate emphasis on confiscation came just over a month after he used the previous Democrat debate to say, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.”
But after last night’s debate ended, O’Rourke told Breitbart’s Matt Perdie, “I’m not going to confiscate AR-15s.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to endorse Bernie Sanders for president
The Guardian – The progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is set to endorse Bernie Sanders in the race to be the Democratic party’s nominee for the White House next year.
During the fourth Democratic debate on Tuesday night Sanders, 78, who had been recuperating since suffering a heart attack that raised questions about his health, teased the appearance of a surprise guest at a Bernie’s Back rally scheduled for Saturday in New York.
That triggered a wave of online speculation and a report from the Washington Post that Ocasio-Cortez would be joining the Vermont senator onstage and endorsing him in his bid for the presidency. The Guardian later confirmed the news.
Ocasio-Cortez’s shock move ends months of speculation about the plans of the Bronx politician, who is hugely popular with the progressive wing of the party.
“You Are to Stand Down”: Ronan Farrow’s Producer on How NBC Killed Its Weinstein Story
Vanity Fair – One year ago, I resigned from NBC News because they ordered me to stop reporting on Harvey Weinstein, and I did not believe that they had been truthful with me or Ronan Farrow, the correspondent with whom I worked for almost a year on what would become one of the defining stories of our time. I felt a responsibility to speak up, and I thought that going on the record might shed some light on what was, as I told the New York Times, a “massive breach of journalistic integrity.”
In response, NBC told the Times that “the assertion that NBC News tried to kill the Weinstein story” was “an outright lie.” Andy Lack, the chairman of news, issued an 11-page memo dismissing it as “unfounded intimations and accusations.” Noah Oppenheim, the president of news, said that I was “never told to stop in the way he’s implying.”
But as I witnessed firsthand during the year I spent at NBC News after Ronan published our reporting in the New Yorker—and as Ronan has further documented in his forthcoming book, Catch and Kill—Lack and Oppenheim were the ones who were lying. They not only personally intervened to shut down our investigation of Weinstein, they even refused to allow me to follow up on our work after Weinstein’s history of sexual assault became front-page news. As the record shows, they behaved more like members of Weinstein’s PR team than the journalists they claim to be. Thanks to them, a leading national news organization, in broad daylight and with zero remorse, abdicated its single greatest responsibility—to relentlessly pursue and tell the truth.
ABC News Apologizes For Airing Fake Bombing Video During Report on Syria
Mediate – ABC News showed a fake video purportedly showing the bombing of Syria by Turkish forces, Sunday, before apologizing for its mistake.
The video, aired on ABC’s World News Tonight, with anchor Tom Llamas’ claiming that the footage showed “Turkey’s military bombing Kurd civilians in a Syrian border town.” The video, however, was not from Syria as reported, but instead “a military gun demonstration in Kentucky that was published to YouTube in 2017,” according to Gizmodo.
ABC News apologized for airing the video, Monday, and it was taken down from YouTube and ABC News’ website.
“We’ve taken down video that aired on ‘World News Tonight Sunday’ and ‘Good Morning America’ this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy,” an ABC News spokesman told Mediaite. “ABC News regrets the error.”
Further, an ABC News source tells Mediaite that the investigation into how the footage made it to air is ongoing.
House GOP Moves Forward on Schiff Censure Effort
Newsmax – Republicans in the House continue to pursue a censure resolution against Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., amid the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump he is leading.
According to The Hill, Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., revised the resolution that has support from a large portion of the party. A vote on the measure could occur in the coming days.
“Whereas, according to a New York Times article on October 2, 2019, Chairman Schiff’s committee staff met with the whistleblower prior to the filing of his complaint, and staff members communicated the content of the complaint to Chairman Schiff,” the resolution reads.
Republicans have accused Schiff of dishonesty when he claimed to have had no contact with the whistleblower who raised the alarm on President Donald Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. It was later reported that the whistleblower had been in contact with the House Intelligence Committee, which Schiff chairs.
Chicago Public Schools cancels classes for 361,000 students over teachers strike
RT – Chicago Public Schools has canceled classes for some 361,000 students on Thursday after the teachers’ union said it will push ahead with a strike over stalled labor negotiations.
The union is calling for greater resources for teaching staff, including higher pay and more nurses in schools, as well as support from social workers and school librarians.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said city negotiators had “bent over backwards” to meet the union’s concerns and needs in a way that “meets our shared vision” for schools, but that despite the efforts, the union is going ahead with its strike.
LeBron James Refuses to Address China Backlash: ‘We’re Not Politicians’
Breitbart – Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James said Tuesday that he will no longer comment on the ongoing China-NBA scandal following the backlash he received for criticizing a general manager’s support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.
“I’d be cheating my teammates by continuing to harp on something that won’t benefit us trying to win a championship because that’s what we’re here for,” James told reporters. “We’re not politicians. It’s a huge political thing. But we are leaders, and we can step up at a times, but you don’t feel like you should upon things you shouldn’t have to.”

Science & Technology

Nasa unveils new spacesuit for next Moon landing
BBC – The US space agency has unveiled the prototype for a new spacesuit that could be worn by the next astronauts on the Moon.
Nasa chief Jim Bridenstine shared a close-up look at the next-generation suits for the agency’s Artemis programme.
The xEMU prototype suit looks similar to ones used at the International Space Station.
But Nasa said it had been improved for comfort, fit and mobility on the Moon.
Mr Bridenstine also presented the Orion Crew Survival System, an orange flight suit with helmet that will be worn by crews in the Orion spacecraft for launch and re-entry.
Orion is the replacement for the space shuttle, but, unlike that system, it’s designed to carry astronauts to the Moon and other targets in deep space.
World’s first self-navigating AI ship to make journey across Atlantic…
Daily Star – An unmanned, fully-autonomous vessel will be one of the first to ever cross the Atlantic Ocean, it has been announced.
Computer giants IBM revealed today they are creating the state-of-the-art Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) with the hope of it setting sail in September 2020 to mark the fourth centenary of the original Mayflower voyage.
It will use IBM’s servers, AI, cloud and edge-computing technologies to navigate and avoid ocean hazards from Plymouth, England to Plymouth, Massachusetts, US.
If successful, MAS will be one of the first self-navigating, full-sized vessels to cross the Atlantic Ocean and opens the door on a new era of autonomous research ships.
Ride-hailing companies Uber, Lyft won’t testify before Congress
Reuters – Uber Technologies Inc and Lyft Inc declined to appear on Wednesday at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing on issues relating to the ride-hailing industry, a congressional committee said. The two ride-hailing companies had been asked to appear as part of a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee inquiry on safety and labor practices as lawmakers seek to prepare legislation that will impact the industry.
“Their failure to appear at this hearing is a telling sign that they would rather suffer a public lashing than answer questions on the record about their operations,” the head of the panel, U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio, a Democrat, said in his prepared remarks.
DeFazio added that the hearing “should also serve also a wake-up call to the companies that have flooded our roadways with disruptive technologies and investor capital that their days of operating with little public policy and regulatory oversight in the transportation space are coming to an end.”
He raised a number of issues, from safety to congestion to wages of drivers.

Energy & Environment

An “All-Out Blizzard” That Is “Unheard Of For October” Is About To Hit Farms In The Midwest With Up To 2 Feet Of Snow
Michael Snyder – Farmers in the middle of the country are about to get hit by what could potentially be the worst October blizzard in U.S. history. According to USA Today, “the massive size and intensity of this snowstorm is unheard of for October”. In other words, we have never seen anything like this in the month of October ever before. Such a storm would have been disastrous enough in a normal year, but this has definitely not been a normal year for Midwest farmers. As I detailed extensively in previous articles, endless rain and horrific flooding made planting season a complete and utter nightmare for many Midwest farmers this year. Millions of acres did not get planted at all, and planting was seriously delayed on tens of millions of other acres. As a result, corn, soybeans and other crops are simply not ready to be harvested in many parts of the Midwest, and now an unprecedented winter storm is barreling directly toward our heartland.
This is a very, very serious situation. Normally, most corn in the Dakotas and Minnesota is considered to be “mature” by now, but this year we are facing a completely different scenario.
According to the latest USDA Crop Progress Report, only 22 percent of the corn in North Dakota is considered to be “mature” at this point…
Many farmers continue to wait on the sidelines to get into the fields. With freezing temperatures, heavy snowfall, and high winds set to hit the northern Plains this week, the corn in North Dakota is only 22% mature vs. a 75% five-year average, according to Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report.
Also, South Dakota corn is rated 36% mature vs. an 80% five-year average. Minnesota farmers have a corn crop that is just 39% mature vs. an 83% five-year average.
And now here comes an “all-out blizzard”.
In case you are wondering, I am not the one that put such an extreme label on this storm. In fact, Accuweather is specifically using that term to describe this historic storm…
An unusually far-reaching snowstorm for early October will stall, strengthen and evolve into an “all-out blizzard” over the Dakotas and then will send a blast of cold air across much of the Plains and Midwest.
Heavy snow has already fallen on the northern Rockies and was progressing southeastward along with a charge of cold air. Snow and slippery travel were also being reported in parts of Washington state, including around Spokane where new daily snowfall record for Oct. 8 was set. Spokane International Airport recorded 3.3 inches of snow Tuesday, shattering the previous record for the day, which was a trace set in 1981.
It is crazy that Spokane is already getting snow.
According to Yahoo News, that snowfall already makes this the “third-snowiest October” that the city has ever experienced…
Spokane, Washington, was one town that was hit particularly hard by the snow on Tuesday. A record-breaking 3.3 inches of snow fell, the first measurable snow in the month of October since 2001. It also made this month the third-snowiest October on record, following 3.9 inches in October of 1975 and 6.1 inches in October of 1957.
Ultimately, a few inches of snow is not that big of a deal.
But once this storm reaches the middle of the country, it is going to dump up to 2 feet of snow on some of our most important agricultural areas…

Health

Vitamin C Lowers Mortality in Severe Sepsis
Mercola – Sepsis is a last-ditch effort by your immune system to fight an infection in your body; it can lead to multiple organ failure and death unless promptly treated

While viruses, fungi and parasites all have the ability to trigger sepsis, bacterial infections are the most common cause. The most common types of infection triggering sepsis are respiratory and urinary tract infections
Each year, an estimated 1 million Americans get sepsis and up to half of them die as a result. The reason for its high mortality rate is because sepsis is often overlooked; many are unfamiliar with its signs and symptoms. It’s also notoriously difficult to treat
In 2017, a critical care physician announced the discovery of a simple and inexpensive way to treat sepsis using an intravenous cocktail of vitamin C and thiamine in combination with hydrocortisone
A 2019 study using vitamin C only found it lowered mortality risk in patients with severe sepsis, and reduced the number of days spent in intensive care and overall hospital stay

Power Mall Product of Interest: Purely-C – 90 capsules
Purely-C provides the unique powers of natural vitamin C, plus flavonoids, as found in nature. It is the only 100% raw food-source vitamin C, plus flavonoid, formula available. Synthetic vitamin C is genetically engineered and is inferior to natural flavonoid-rich vitamin C. Low dose natural vitamin C is the natural non-chemical way to consume vitamin C. There is no synthetic vitamin C in Purely-C. Each capsule contains approximately 75 mg or 125% of your daily value of vitamin C from Camu Camu berries, acerola cherries, rose hips and Rhus coriaria powder
Legionnaires’ disease outbreak linked to North Carolina state fair kills 3rd person: officials
Fox – A third person has died following an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in North Carolina.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services on Monday confirmed a third death and 140 cases of Legionnaires’ disease or Pontiac Fever, a milder form of the illness.
Residents in “multiple states and North Carolina counties” have been affected, officials said in the update.
The outbreak is linked to the North Carolina Mountain State Fair, which took place from Sept. 6-15 at the Western North Carolina Agricultural Center in Fletcher.

Pet News

Some Pets Find Them Irresistible, but They Can Be Deadly
Mercola Pets – Himalayan salt lamps are made from large pieces of salt mined from the Himalayas.
If your pet licks the salt lamp repeatedly, it can lead to salt poisoning.
Initially, salt poisoning may lead to vomiting, diarrhea, decreased appetite and lethargy; excessive thirst or urination can also occur.
Neurological symptoms, including incoordination, tremors, seizures and coma can also result from salt poisoning.
If you have a salt lamp in your home, keep it out of your pet’s reach; if this isn’t possible, and you suspect your pet is licking it, remove it