Columbiana

Trump calls for Obamacare repeal, complains about media in leaked '60 Minutes' interview

In an unusual move he had been teasing for days, President Trump on Thursday released his recent, unaired interview with the CBS News program “60 Minutes,” in which he complains repeatedly about the questions he is asked before abruptly ending the discussion. 

'A flat-out lie': Breonna Taylor attorneys seek new prosecutor after jurors speak out

The two anonymous grand jurors in the Breonna Taylor case who spoke out this week about the deliberations had no agenda other than to pursue the truth, their lawyer said. But their disclosures have spurred calls for a new prosecutor in the case.

Treasure hunter dug through Yellowstone cemetery looking for famous bounty, feds say

He was allegedly seeking the coveted Forrest Fenn treasure, officials said.

Fact check: Biden leveraged $1B in aid to Ukraine to oust corrupt prosecutor, not to help his son

Despite a Senate GOP investigation that found no wrongdoing by Joe Biden on foreign policy in Ukraine, claims to the contrary continue to circulate.

Christian singer to host evangelical ‘worship protest’ on Washington DC’s National Mall with 15,000 expected to attend

The event scheduled this weekend will not require attendees to wear masks or social distance

America's 1.3 million Jehovah's Witnesses will be sitting out this election

Jehovah's Witnesses do not vote, run for public office, serve in the military, or take "any action to change governments."

Croatia accused of brutality, sexual abuse against migrants

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Danish aid workers stationed in the Balkans say dozens of migrants have alleged they were brutalized by Croatian law-enforcement officers when they tried to cross into the European Union nation, before being summarily expelled back to Bosnia. Nicola Bay, the head of the Danish Refugee Council in Bosnia, told The Associated Press Friday that 149 migrants of varying nationalities, independently interviewed by his staff in the country over the past 10 days, reported being exposed to “extremely abusive” treatment by Croatian police. The testimonies include allegations of brutal and prolonged beatings, of people being stripped naked and being forced to lie like logs stacked on top of each other, Bay said, adding: “In two cases, we have reports of severe sexual abuse.”

The family of the rescued Zion National Park hiker spoke out after a sheriff's sergeant questioned her survival story — but it's still confusing

Holly Courtier was found 12 days after disappearing on a hike. Her sister spoke to reporters after a sheriff's sergeant questioned the survival story.

Turkey's Armenians 'cannot breathe' as Karabakh rhetoric rages

Turkey's support of Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh is loud and intensely partisan, and the tiny Armenian community in Turkey is feeling under pressure.

Intelligence officials think the Trump administration's election interference warnings are focused on the wrong country

American intelligence officials described the Trump administration's decision to focus on Iran's election disinformation campaign on Wednesday night as "concerning," characterizing efforts by Russia to be a bigger threat to destabilizing Americans' faith in the integrity of election results come Nov. 3.FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe shared on Wednesday that both Russia and Iran have obtained voter registration information and that Iran specifically is using it to email Americans and "intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump." But as Jeh C. Johnson, the former secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, told The New York Times, "It is concerning to me that the administration is willing to talk about what the Iranians are doing — supposedly to hurt Trump — than what the Russians are likely doing to help him. If the Russians have in fact breached voter registration data, then the American people deserve to know from their government what it believes the Russians are doing with that data."Another intelligence insider who spoke with the Times "compared the Iranian action as single A baseball, while the Russians are major leaguers." Additionally, while there is no evidence to suggest that Moscow has changed vote tallies or voter registration in the U.S., insiders warned that the nation's operations would likely "be intended to help President Trump, potentially by exacerbating disputes around the results, especially if the race is too close to call," the Times adds.Laura Rosenberger, the director of the bipartisan Alliance for Securing Democracy, cautioned on Twitter that "freaking out about this" is exactly "what Russia wants!" She added, "The good news is that if their goal is to make us lose faith in the integrity of the process, we can refuse to do so! Keep calm, vote, be patient for results, and don't fall for false claims of hacks!"More stories from theweek.com Trump loses on the merits Who won the final 2020 debate? Call it a draw. Get ready for Trump TV, America

Minn. judge dismisses 1 charge against former cop in Floyd's death

A Minnesota judge has dismissed a third-degree murder charge filed against the former Minneapolis police officer who pressed his knee against George Floyd’s neck, but the more serious second-degree murder charge remains.

'Mama, they just shot us for nothing': Waukegan police officer fatally shoots Black teen, injures woman

People are protesting in Waukegan, Illinois, after a police officer fatally shot 19-year-old Marcellis Stinnette on Tuesday.

Pelosi Refuses to Answer Reporter’s Question on Hunter Biden: ‘I Don’t Have All Day’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) refused on Thursday to answer a reporter's question about corruption allegations against Joe and Hunter Biden.A former business partner of Hunter Biden, Tony Bobulinski, sent documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday purporting to show a business arrangement between members of the Biden family and now-defunct Chinese oil company CEFC. One email that Bobulinski received describes a business deal between Hunter Biden and representatives of the politically-connected Chinese energy firm CEFC in which Joe Biden, who is referred to as "the big guy," is slated to receive a ten percent stake.During a press briefing with the House Speaker on Thursday, a reporter attempted to bring up the corruption allegations.> .@SpeakerPelosi snaps at a reporter asking her about Hunter Biden: "I’m not answering those questions — we’re talking about the coronavirus." pic.twitter.com/p71CSpq8l2> > -- Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 22, 2020"Madame Speaker, these allegations of corruption involving Joe Biden—" the reporter asked, before Pelosi cut her off."Okay, I'm not answering your question, okay?" Pelosi said. "We’re talking about the coronavirus, that’s what I—I don’t have all day for questions, that’s what we’re taking now." Pelosi proceeded to field several additional questions on the pandemic response and negotiations for a potential economic relief bill.President Trump has dug into the allegations against Joe Biden and his son in the run-up to the November elections. While the Biden campaign has denounced the allegations as a smear campaign and possible Russian disinformation, Biden has not denied the veracity of emails purporting to describe the CEFC deal.The New York Post last week revealed documents purportedly from Hunter Biden's laptop detailing additional business dealings in Ukraine. The Biden campaign has also not denied the veracity of those documents.

Ghislaine Maxwell could not contain frustration as she 'pounded' desk during bad tempered deposition

Ghislaine Maxwell could not hide her frustration during an increasingly heated and bad tempered legal deposition that was unsealed in New York. Several times during the seven-hour exchange, which took place over two days, her anger boiled over as she was forced to answer repeated questions about allegations made by a woman she insisted was a serial liar. At one point, unable to contain her emotions, Miss Maxwell “very inappropriately and very harshly” pounded the desk, forcing them to take a break. She was being quizzed about Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s claim that she was just 15 when she was first introduced to Jeffrey Epstein at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, which she furiously insisted had been fabricated to make the story “more exciting.” “Can we agree she was not the age she said… that is obviously, manifestly, absolutely, totally a lie,” Miss Maxwell said. Sigfrid McCawley, for Ms Roberts Giuffre, interjected, stating for the record that Miss Maxwell had banged the desk “in an inappropriate manner.” “I ask she take a deep breath and calm down,” she said. “I know this is a difficult position but physical assault or threats is not appropriate so no pounding, no stomping, no.”

AOC's snub of a tribute to an assassinated Nobel Peace Prize winner sure makes it seem like all Israeli leaders are too problematic for the progressive left

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bailed on a left-wing peace advocacy group's memorial for former Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin after online backlash.

Fauci says as coronavirus infections swell, federal task force is meeting just weekly

The infectious diseases doctor who has become a central figure in the pandemic told MSNBC the frequency of meetings has "diminished" over time.

You Can Now Get a COVID-19 Vaccine in China. That Might Not Be a Good Thing

An unofficial vaccine rollout is gathering pace despite the warnings of international public health experts

Kobe Bryant’s Widow Vanessa Lists Tuscan-Style Southern California Home

The couple purchased the three-bedroom dwelling in Irvine as an investment in 2013

The early vote in Texas and Florida is already greater than Trump's 2016 totals in those states

Texas and Florida's early voters have already surpassed a meaningful record, and several other states are close behind.As of Friday, Florida had already counted more early votes — 4,771,956 — than votes for President Trump in the 2016 election — 4,617,886. Texas passed that same threshold earlier this week with more than 5 million votes cast so far in 2020 to 4.69 million cast for Trump in 2016. It all points to a record turnout for the 2020 election — and potentially good news for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.In Florida, a poll from St. Pete Polls and Florida Politics suggests those early and absentee voters are overwhelmingly directed in Biden's favor. Among those who'd already voted, 58 percent voted for Biden while 39 percent went for Trump. Still, the poll found 49 percent of likely voters — including those who had yet to cast their ballots — were opting for Biden, with Trump close behind at 47 percent. Republicans will also benefit from a surge of voter registration in Florida for this election.In Texas, polls have also suggested Biden has a chance of turning the state blue for the first time in decades, and a rush of early votes lends credence to that possibility. California, Washington, D.C., New Jersey, New Mexico, and Vermont also cast more early votes as of Monday than Trump won in those states in 2016. Georgia, with 1.9 early and absentee votes cast as of Thursday, is close to passing that threshold as well.The poll of 2,527 Floridian likely voters was taken Oct. 12–14, with a 2 percentage point margin of error. Of those likely voters, 60.3 percent had already voted by mail or in person.More stories from theweek.com Trump loses on the merits Who won the final 2020 debate? Call it a draw. Get ready for Trump TV, America

A 73-year-old in Colorado was fined more than $1,000 after her pet deer gored a woman walking her dog

Tynette Housley, 73, was cited on misdemeanor charges of illegal possession of wildlife and illegally feeding wildlife.

Fact check: Biden owns 2 of the 4 homes pictured in a viral meme

A viral meme purports to show four $3 million-$7.5 million homes Biden owns. He only owns two of them, neither of which cost more than $3 million.

All US Navy destroyers will get hypersonic missiles, says Trump’s national security adviser

All three flights of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are going to get the weapons, according to Robert O'Brien.

Nigeria president warns protesters as unrest flares

Nigeria's president has urged an end to unrest sweeping the country but avoided mentioning the police shooting of unarmed demonstrators that sparked international condemnation and unleashed chaos in Africa's biggest city. Lagos has seen shootings, looted shops and a prison set ablaze since security forces this week opened fire on peaceful protesters calling for better governance and an end to police brutality in the city of 20 million. Amnesty International said Nigerian soldiers and police gunned down 12 demonstrators, while 56 have died overall across the country since a wave of protests began two weeks ago. President Muhammadu Buhari warned protesters on Thursday not to "undermine national security" in his first national address since Tuesday's incident, which he avoided mentioning directly. Instead, he blamed agitators who he said had "hijacked and misdirected" the protest movement.

US embassy in Turkey issues a warning about 'potential terrorist attacks and kidnappings' of Americans and foreigners in Istanbul

In response to the threat, the embassy suspended its services and urged American citizens to be careful, avoid crowds, and keep a low profile.

Venezuelans 'dying slowly' in rat- and roach-infested homes

Sunlight cannot penetrate, the air is fetid and fellow residents include rats and cockroaches -- but that's how 14 families are "dying slowly" in government accommodation in Venezuela's capital Caracas.

Fact check: Harris said her work as California's AG is a 'model of what our nation needs'

Kamala Harris never said that "California is a model of what the country should be." She did, however, say her work on criminal justice reform is "a model of what our nation needs to do."

Scoop: Rudy Giuliani declined offer of compromising Hunter Biden emails and images in May 2019

Giuliani turned the offer down out of credibility concerns, a source familiar with the meeting tells Salon

China's President Xi Jinping issues a warning to potential ‘invaders’

President Xi Jinping has issued a sharp warning to potential “invaders” on the 70th anniversary of the Chinese entry into the Korean War.

Scott Peterson, who killed pregnant wife, faces death penalty at resentencing

“At this point in time, we are on track to retry" the death penalty case, a prosecutor told a judge in California on Friday.

‘He’s losing it. He’s losing it’: Here’s what happened when I watched the final debate with Trump loyalists in Florida

President is fighting for his political life in Florida, writes Andrew Buncombe from a debate-watching party in Daytona Beach

Colorado wildfire jumps U.S. Continental Divide, threatens mountain towns

An explosive Colorado wildfire that has already forced the evacuation of several mountain communities and the closure of Rocky Mountain National Park blackened another 45,000 acres (18,200 hectares) on Thursday as it jumped the U.S. Continental Divide. The East Troublesome Fire, which broke out on Oct. 14, has now burned 170,000 acres (68,800 hectares) and was only about 5% contained as of Thursday afternoon, incident commander Noel Livingston said at a news briefing. The flames have spread into Rocky Mountain National Park, prompted the National Park Service to close the entire 415 square-mile (668-square-km) expanse and the blaze has become the second-largest on record in Colorado.

North Korea told citizens to stay inside, claiming (with no scientific basis) that a storm of yellow dust coming from China was carrying COVID-19

On Wednesday, North Korea's state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper warned people of the "danger of invading malicious viruses" inside an approaching storm.

Turkish burgers off the menu in Saudi Arabia as trade boycott bites fast food industry

With its spicy sauce and Ottoman-themed packaging, the “Turkish burger” is one of the more exotic choices on the menu at Saudi Arabian restaurant Herfy. Or, at least, it was. This week, the Turkish patty has vanished from the menu and been replaced with an identical “Greek burger,” the latest casualty of Saudi Arabia’s unofficial boycott of Turkish products. “It’s the same thing,” one Herfy worker, Mahmood Bassyoni, told customers as he offered them a taste of the burger, according to Bloomberg news agency. “Just the name changed.” The boycott reportedly began after Recep Tayyip Erdogan outraged Riyadh, one of its main rivals in the Middle East, by claiming that “Arab countries in the Gulf will not exist for long but Turkey will always remain powerful.” Tensions have also simmered over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate and differing attitudes towards Islamist groups in the region. Mr Erdogan has accused Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, of ordering the murder personally, something that he vehemently denies. The Telegraph approached Herfy for comment on whether the rebranding was related to the boycott but had not received a response at the time of publication. According to Arab News, a Saudi news website, the boycott has been gaining steam in recent weeks, with major supermarket Al Sadhan Group expressing support for the campaign. This was followed by dairy firm Tamimi Markets adding its voice to the backlash against Turkish goods, along with a number of online fashion retailers.

100-year-old voter shares advice ahead of election, names favorite president in her lifetime

Voting since she was eighteen, Mabel Cook votes in her fifteenth presidential election. Great-grandkids witness the monumental event

Trump commutes sentence of ex-Georgia teacher convicted of $8 million food stamp fraud

The then-Atlanta Public Schools educator was sentenced in 2013.

Far-right extremist shot at Minneapolis' police precinct to spark violence during Floyd protests, FBI says

A far-right extremist has been accused of opening fire on Minneapolis' third police precinct and sparking violence during May's George Floyd protests.Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old from Texas, was charged Friday with one count of interstate travel to participate in a riot. An admitted member of the "Boogaloo Bois," Hunter opened fire on the precinct and later looted it and helped set it on fire, the FBI said in a sworn affidavit released Friday.The Minneapolis police's third precinct was just a block from where Floyd was killed, and became the center of protests against police violence that devolved into the destruction of the precinct and buildings around it. Hunter is one of several far-right extremists accused of intentionally ramping up that violence. Armed with a mask and tactical gear, Hunter fired 13 rounds at the precinct while officers were inside and ran away shouting "Justice for Floyd," the FBI alleges. He later bragged about "help[ing] the community burn down that police station" on Facebook.Hunter admitted he was member of the Boogaloo movement, a collection of far-right, anti-government extremists intent on sparking a second civil war. He was in contact with other self-described Boogaloo Bois who arranged a trip to Minneapolis. He also texted with Steven Carrillo, another Boogaloo member who later shot and killed a sheriff's deputy in California.More stories from theweek.com Trump loses on the merits Who won the final 2020 debate? Call it a draw. Get ready for Trump TV, America

At least 10 bodies were found by researchers in a dig searching for victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre

An estimated 150 to 300 people, who were mostly Black, were killed in the Tulsa Race Massacre, which occurred from May 31, 1921 to June 1, 1921.

Mitch McConnell’s hand is discoloured and bandaged – but he insists nothing is wrong

Senator appeared to keep his hand in his pocket while walking around the Capitol

Why the NSA Told Henry Kissinger to Drop Dead When He Tried to Cut Intel Links with Britain

LONDON—Henry Kissinger once tried to come between the National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s GCHQ, their signals intelligence (SIGINT) brothers from the other side of the pond, and the response from the U.S. intelligence agency was short and swift.“The NSA simply said, ‘Drop dead,’” says the author of a new authorized history of GCHQ, who explains that the two intelligence agencies have a closer relationship with each other than they do with their own governments.The world’s two leading signals intelligence agencies are so tightly bound together that they share virtually all of the material they gather with no questions asked. Over the years, GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) has frequently protected the NSA from rivals within the U.S. including the CIA and Naval intelligence units—and even their respective presidents and prime ministers come second in the hierarchy of loyalty, according to Behind the Enigma: The Authorized History of GCHQ, Britain’s Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency by John Ferris.“I say in the book—and both GCHQ and NSA allowed me to say it—that at some point or another, every director of GCHQ and NSA colludes with each other in order to do something which their own national authority might try to impede,” Ferris told The Daily Beast.One such clash arose in 1973 when Kissinger, who was President Nixon’s national security adviser at the time, ordered the NSA to stop sharing signals intelligence with Britain in order to pressure London to support Nixon’s Israel policy.The NSA refused to comply, challenging Kissinger’s authority despite his key role at the White House. Ironically, under the shared intelligence agreement between the agencies, Kissinger’s move would have left the U.S. flying blind in the Middle East because collecting signals intelligence in the region was entirely the domain of the British who funnelled the intel back to Fort Meade.One of the most bizarre aspects of this unparalleled intelligence sharing partnership is that it is not enshrined in any treaty; it’s a subnational, totally non-binding agreement, which makes the NSA’s willingness to stand up to Kissinger even more extraordinary.“If Jeremy Corbyn had been elected with a majority, I think he would have broken it and he could have done so. And if Donald Trump wanted to break it, he could do so. Any British prime minister or American president is free to choose. The problem is they’re so closely intertwined that it would cause massive immediate problems, or huge amounts of expenditure to overcome. That wouldn’t have bothered Corbyn,” said Ferris.The relationship was also entirely secret for 25 years after World War II. It wasn’t until 2010 that the documents behind the agreement were put into the public domain. This comprehensive book uses unprecedented access to GCHQ files to chart the full history of the agreement, which is called UKUSA (pronounced yoo-kusa, a bit like the Japanese mafia, by those in the know).“The only organization I can think of which in any way comes close is NORAD, the North American air defense system where the Canadian and American air defense systems are integrated. But that’s much more narrow and specific than UKUSA, but that’s the only other thing that comes close. So, yes, this is really unique,” said Ferris, who is a professor of history at the University of Calgary in Canada.At the end of the Cold War, during which British expertise on intercepting Russian communications had been instrumental, there was a fear that GCHQ’s influence would wane, but the agency, which is based in Cheltenham, southwest England, bucked expectations and repositioned itself as a trailblazer in modern signals intelligence.With the resources freed from exhaustively covering the Soviet Union, GCHQ was able to start doing what it’s really good at, which is exploring new territories—in this case, the early days of the internet, mapping it out for themselves and the Americans and then coming up with new methods of interception and cryptography to suit the new environment.British paymasters recognized the outsized diplomatic clout they maintained in Fort Meade and in Washington, where GCHQ intel product remains highly respected, so long as the intelligence agency was allowed to thrive, and so investment in the agency remained relatively high despite the end of the Cold War.Ferris was not allowed to detail current intel methods in the book for obvious reasons, but the documents published by Edward Snowden, who was employed by a contractor to work at an NSA facility, give an unmistakable insight into the current balance of the relationship between GCHQ and the NSA.“If I’m judging simply by material which has been leaked, mostly by Snowden in the past five or six years, my sense is that the British are relatively much more significant than they were at any point since the 1960s,” said Ferris. “If you go through the Snowden material, you’ll find that a huge number of the technical innovations clearly are British, and, in fact, the Americans pay GCHQ to develop them.”The book argues that regular NSA efforts to subsidize GCHQ, which has a much smaller budget and staff, is a sign not of GCHQ’s weakness but of its strength. The British SIGINTers are seen as valuable scouts and innovators who routinely deliver a good return on investment. As the former director of GCHQ, David Omand, once joked, “We have the brains. They have the money.”This is not to say, the NSA is not filled with brilliant people in itself, and their capacity for intelligence gathering is unparalleled. “The Americans have this raw power, which once focused is overwhelming,” said Ferris. “I would personally say that NSA is one of the most technologically disruptive organizations in history. So, the two of them together are very formidable.”The relationship between the American and British signals intelligence communities blossomed during World War II, when U.S. pioneers were invited over to Bletchley Park, the legendary home of the codebreakers who cracked Germany’s secret wartime communications.“Genuinely, they were astounded by the quality of every branch of British SIGINT and, in fact, came to understand that what the British were doing was very ahead of us in every single way,” said Ferris.Anglo-American relations were complicated during the course of the war, with Washington initially reluctant to become embroiled in another predominantly European conflict. After the war, American SIGINTers, with the help of GCHQ input, succeeded in convincing President Harry Truman that a large-scale peacetime SIGINT operation was necessary to ensure there was never a “Nuclear Pearl Harbor.”UKUSA was established in 1946, linking American and British SIGINT efforts ever since. The agreement also took in Britain’s recent Dominions; Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Together they formed a global network which is now known as Five Eyes.The relative merits of NSA and GCHQ have fluctuated over the decades. In the ’50s and even early ’60s, GCHQ was still seen as the more impressive intelligence producer. American internal memos bemoaned the supremacy of GCHQ’s final product, which was often deemed better written and more fully analysed.In the latter decades of the 20th century, big American investments in supercomputing and expensive advances, including satellite technology, ensured NSA was in the ascendancy.The agreement was founded on individual personal relationships between SIGINTers, and sometimes those were rocky. There were complaints that GCHQ was hogging the most prestigious roles; British assessments of American product were sometimes deemed “too rude to share;” and in the mid-’80s NSA Director William Odom complained that GCHQ did not carry out its share of the work given how much authority it demanded.“The British clearly can’t accept happily their own loss of pre-eminence in this business,” Odom wrote in his remarkably frank diary. “Socially I no longer find the British amusing, merely a pain in the ass.”But throughout it all, NSA and GCHQ, two largely civilian organizations, maintained their togetherness. All of the Five Eyes countries would send senior liaison officers and up-and-coming “integrees” to work at the other agencies, sharing intel techniques and honing each other’s skills. A no-poach policy ensures that the agencies are willing to let their best and their brightest take part in the exchanges. In Behind the Enigma, Ferris writes:> In one legendary moment, an American integree at Cheltenham and a British one at Fort Meade conducted negotiations between GCHQ and NSA on behalf of their adopted services; in another, every member of a Sigint conference between Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States held a British passport.GCHQ is also part of American decision-making. There are lots of interagency meetings and important issues where GCHQ representatives are part of the decision-making process right on U.S. soil. On Sept. 12, 2001, the head of GCHQ was on the only aircraft allowed into the United States immediately after 9/11. General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA, has since said it was decided in the aftermath that GCHQ would assume command of all American SIGINT if Fort Meade was compromised.“NSA could trust GCHQ to have its back in a way that it cannot trust any other American agency to have its back. And GCHQ and NSA provide each other with state secrets, which only a handful of other people would see. It is one of the most unusual arrangements I’ve ever seen,” Ferris said.General Hayden, who was director of both the NSA and CIA, was an exception, but there has often been a rivalry between the two agencies which dates back to the 1950s when NSA was created: CIA operatives around the world had previously been responsible for foreign SIGINT collection.“There was a huge amount of blood on the floor,” said Ferris, and relations were often tough over the decades to come. “There are moments when CIA—for good reasons or bad—is not doing what NSA would like. And GCHQ helps NSA avoid some of those problems. GCHQ has perfectly civil relations with CIA. So, it’s actually easier for GCHQ to get CIA to help NSA than it is for NSA to get CIA to help NSA.”Many SIGINTers believe UKUSA will eventually fall apart now that the unifying threat of the Cold War has faded away and there is no guarantee that new generations of political leaders will share common foreign policy goals. The strength of the agreement was tested in the Middle East in the ’70s when British and American governments disagreed over Israel, and similarly two decades before when Washington did not support British policy during the 1956 Suez crisis. On that occasion GCHQ actually hampered British government policy by refusing to cooperate with French intelligence.If the agreement does eventually collapse it will cost the U.S. billions of dollars—Ferris believes the NSA budget would have to increase by around a third—to replace the input from Britain. But even more than that, one of the greatest intelligence-gathering partnerships the world has ever seen would be permanently damaged.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.

Dispute over Ohio drop box limit ends as advocates drop suit

The fight over Ohio's limit on ballot drop boxes ended Friday after a coalition of voting rights groups opted to drop their lawsuit, leaving in place an election chief's order that was derided by three separate courts. The A. Philip Randolph Institute, League of Women Voters of Ohio and ACLU of Ohio made the decision after the federal appellate court in Cincinnati set a timetable last week that pushed further activity in the case past Election Day. The dropped suit was a win for Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who issued the directive.

Delta brutally subtweets rival airlines like American and United for not blocking middle seats during a pandemic

Delta's tweet, which read "A haunted house, but they're not blocking middle seats," appeared to call out competitor airlines.

How has China avoided a coronavirus second wave?

Europe is the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic once again, with the number of daily infections doubling in the past 10 days as a second wave hits. But China has avoided a second wave. The question is why? The answer is that its authorities, after being overwhelmed in Wuhan, have fine-tuned an emergency response for surprise cluster outbreaks. Many subsequent waves of infection have emerged in China, a country of 1.4 billion people and nearly 40 times the size of the UK. Cases have cropped up across the country, as far apart as in the south along the border to Vietnam, and in the north near Russia.

Colorado wildfires have forced the closure of Rocky Mountain National Park. These photos show orange skies, towering smoke.

The pollution may be masking the spread of COVID-19, Gov. Jared Polis warned. Meanwhile, Rocky Mountain National Park has completely closed.

Report: Pope comments on same-sex marriage initially not broadcast

A Mexican television broadcaster confirmed Thursday that Pope Francis’ bombshell comments endorsing same-sex civil unions were made during a May 2019 interview that was never broadcast in its entirety.

Giuliani's Hunter Biden material was apparently being sold in Ukraine 18 months ago

"Explicit photos and emails purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden were circulating in Ukraine last year at the same time that Rudy Giuliani was searching for dirt there on former Vice President Joe Biden," Time reports, citing two people approached with the material in May and September of 2019. "The two people said they could not confirm whether any of the material presented to them was the same as that which has been recently published in the U.S.," or whether any of the documents were authentic.One of the people said when the New York Post published a story about material purportedly taken from a water-damaged laptop left at a Delaware repair shop, "it brought back memories of the same information that was being introduced to us a year ago." The second person told Time the material was offered for sale at a price of $5 million, with the unidentified seller looking to sell it to Republican allies of President Trump, but "I walked away from it, because it smelled awful."In January, the U.S. cybersecurity firm Area 1 reported that Russia's GRU military hackers had broken into the computer systems of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company Hunter Biden worked for. Selling pilfered private information is so commonplace in Ukraine now it's the "national sport," said Igor Novikov, a former adviser to Ukraine's president, and it really exploded when Giuliani put out the call for dirt on the Bidens. One of the people Giuliani worked with, Andrii Derkach, has been identified by the U.S. government as an "active Russian agent.""For months, Derkach has been peddling allegations of criminality against Biden that are remarkably similar to the broad strokes of the initial New York Post story," Politico reports. "If Borat was able to compromise Rudy, imagine what a trained intelligence officer could do," quipped former CIA officer Alex Finley.Russian intelligence often mixes in forged documents with real ones, and anything coming from Ukraine's kompromat market should be treated with caution, as it's "extremely hard to verify, yet very easy to fake," Novikov told Time."For those not steeped in the byzantine maze of reporting on Hunter Biden, the story can be pretty hard to follow," Politico notes, but in short, "there are giant blinking warning signs about the documents, their provenance, and the timing of their disclosure." Read more about the "hard drive from hell" at Politico and Time.More stories from theweek.com Who won the final 2020 debate? Call it a draw. Trump vividly reminds us that he doesn't know how tariffs work Joe Biden's hokey virtue signaling is good politics

Letters to the Editor: Protesters showed up at David Lacey's home. He had a gun. Can you blame him?

Readers say David Lacey's action against the predawn Black Lives Matter protest at his home on March 2 was understandable, if regrettable.

Pompeo urges end to Armenia, Azerbaijan conflict but no progress seen

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday urged an end to  fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh as he met his counterparts from Azerbaijan and Armenia but there were no signs of progress.

University of Utah admits error in Lauren McCluskey’s death and agrees to pay $13.5m settlement

Lauren McCluskey had reported harassment to police more than 20 times