| At least 13 people are confirmed to have died in Hurricane Michael—the most powerful hurricane to hit the continental U.S. in five decades. One of the dead has been named as 11-year-old girl Sarah Radney, who died in a freak accident after a carport slammed into the roof of her house. Many are learning the extent of the damage to their homes today, with many having been obliterated by 155 mph winds. More than 900,000 homes and businesses in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas were without power as of Friday morning, and thousands of National Guard troops, law-enforcement officers and rescue teams are working to help those affected in the Florida Panhandle. There are fears the death toll will rise when rescue teams manage to reach areas blocked off by storm debris. |
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| After getting into a physical altercation last fall with a Chinese official over the White House’s “nuclear football,” Chief of Staff John Kelly reportedly said that he will only accept an apology if a senior Beijing official travels to Washington and expresses contrition while standing under a U.S. flag, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The altercation occurred during Trump’s visit to Beijing, Axios reported, when President Trump walked into the Great Hall of the People. A Chinese official tried to stop the military aide who was carrying the nuclear football—the portable device capable of launching the U.S. arsenal and likely triggering World War III—from following him, and another official alerted Kelly. As Kelly moved to resolve the situation, a Chinese security official is said to have grabbed him. Kelly pushed off the official’s hand, and a U.S. Secret Service agent tackled the official to the ground. Axios noted that no Chinese officials ever touched the nuclear controls, and the head of the Chinese security detail later apologized to the Americans—which, apparently, wasn’t enough to satisfy Kelly. |
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| American pastor Andrew Brunson, who has been imprisoned in Turkey for nearly two years on dubious charges of terrorism and espionage, was convicted of terror charges Friday but released from house arrest on time served, The New York Times reports. The judge reduced Brunson’s sentence from five years to three years, one month, and 15 days, the Financial Times reports, and lifted all judicial controls to allow to him to fly home to the U.S., citing time served and good behavior. Brunson, an evangelical pastor who runs a church in Izmir, was first detained alongside about two dozen other Americans during a failed coup attempt in 2016. He denies all the charges against him. Brunson has been entangled for months in a diplomatic crisis between President Trump and Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan. He was supposed to have been released in July in a trade-off, but the deal fell through and talks soured soon after. |
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| Earlier this week, a white woman accused a young black boy of grabbing her behind inside a New York City bodega—but newly released surveillance footage of the encounter shows the child never intentionally touched her. The New York Post reports that the woman was paying for two bags of cat litter at Sahara Deli Market in Flatbush Wednesday when the little boy, who was wearing a bulky backpack and carrying a plastic bag, walked past her with his mother. In the video, it appears the bag the boy was carrying brushed against the woman as he walked by. The footage obtained by the Post then shows the woman turn around and start yelling at the mother and the boy. Customers within the store began to record the confrontation, and in a video that went viral this week, the boy can be heard crying as the woman calls the cops. “I want the cops here right now!” the woman, who identified herself as Teresa Klein, says into her phone. “The son grabbed my ass, and she decided to yell at me.” Other customers can be heard confronting Klein, with one woman telling her, “Nobody wants to touch your flat ass.” |
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| Working out when you have a full-time job is a fill-time job in itself. Signing up for a gym, buying the right shoes, actually going to the gym, it's a whole to-do. That's what under-desk ellipticals exist and why you should invest in one. The Cubii Jr., the newest iteration of the under-desk elliptical from Cubii is all you could need in one compact machine, and it's on sale for just $189. The Cubii Jr. features an all-new built-in display that shows RPMs, calories burned, and your active time. It's basically all you could ask for from an elliptical without having to either go to a crowded gym work out, or drop multiple hundreds of dollars on something you'll probably just use as a clothes hanger. Scouted is here to surface products that you might like. Follow us on Flipboard. Please note that if you buy something featured in one of our posts, The Daily Beast may collect a share of sales. |
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| Jeffrey Ziegler, who shot at a teenager in need of directions, was found guilty of assault with intent to do great bodily harm and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony on Friday. In April, Ziegler shot at 14-year-old Brennan Walker, who knocked on the door of his Michigan home looking for directions. Ziegler and his wife claimed they thought the teen was trying to break in. A video of the incident was released Thursday after jurors watched it as part of the trial. Ziegler expressed regret over the altercation, claiming he “would have given the teen a ride” if he could change his actions. His bond was revoked, and his sentencing was scheduled for November 18. |
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| Popular skincare company Deciem will resume operations after an Ontario Superior Court judge removed founder and CEO Brandon Truaxe from the company in a Friday ruling. The Business of Fashion reports that Estée Lauder Companies, which owns 28 percent of the company, filed an injunction Thursday to oust Truaxe after he posted on social media earlier this week that he would be immediately shutting down the company. He reportedly ordered store branches to close and shut down the website. Business of Fashion reports Truaxe is now “stripped from any role as an officer or employee at the company” and is barred from taking “any actions pertaining to the operations of Deciem.” Co-chief executive Nicola Kilner has reportedly been appointed interim CEO. “We are pleased with the court’s decision today, and will be working closely with Deciem’s leadership team to support and guide them as they resume operations and continue to provide consumers with the products that they know and love,” an Estée Lauder Companies spokeswoman said. |
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| An army reservist who returned from Afghanistan earlier this year was convicted on prostitution and sex-trafficking charges, the Justice Department announced Friday. Prosecutors alleged that Xaver Boston ran a “sex-trafficking enterprise” in Charlotte, North Carolina, between 2012 and September 2017. Boston recruited young women and one teenager with drug addictions by promising to give them drugs and a place to live, prosecutors said. “In order to coerce the victims to prostitute, Boston withheld their drugs until after they completed commercial sex acts, and he withheld it as punishment if they failed to turn over all of the prostitution proceeds or otherwise violated his rules,” the Justice Department said in a press release. Boston was charged with six counts of sex trafficking and one count of “using an interstate facility to promote a prostitution enterprise.” He faces at least 90 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. |
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| Bloomberg News announced Friday that it would join several other prominent news outlets in withdrawing its attendees from a Saudi Arabian investment conference at the end of the month, in response to allegations that the Saudi government ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a report from Reuters. As The Daily Beast previously reported, outlets including the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and CNN all announced this week that they have withdrawn attendees from the Future Investment Initiative. Fox Business and Financial Times, two other outlets that previously planned to attend, have not yet announced a decision on the matter. These withdrawals come as investigators grow closer to solving the mystery behind the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post contributor who went missing Oct. 2 after visiting the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. Turkish officials claim that on the orders of the Saudi government, Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered inside the embassy, which the government vehemently denies. |
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| In an effort to keep foreign hackers out of the upcoming midterm elections, some states have deployed a method known as “geo-targeting,” which blocks web users from foreign countries on voter-registration sites. One major problem? U.S. citizens who live overseas still want to vote. NPR reports that the defense efforts have already made the voter registration process more difficult for citizens abroad. Additionally, cybersecurity experts have found the method to be virtually ineffective. “Any concerted attacker would use a [virtual private network], they’re really cheap. If anything, this is just marketing,” said Joseph Lorenzo Hall, the chief technologist for the Center For Democracy & Technology. NPR found at least nine states prohibiting access from international IP addresses on their online registration sites. The Federal Voting Assistance Program estimates there are 3 million citizens living outside the U.S. who are eligible to vote. While there are other ways that citizens can vote while abroad, the online process is the simplest. |
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