ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS--- AFP




Thousands take part in a demonstration of the "Sardine Movement", formed to oppose Italy's far-right League party, in Rome.
The youth-driven "Sardine Movement" has become a symbol of protest against Salvini, leader of the League party. ✊
u.afp.com/JyRs







Tensions between the French government and unions opposed to pension reforms mount as a crippling transport strike enters its 11th day.
Read story: http://u.afp.com/JyzA


Superman's very first cape and Bilbo Baggins' pipe are each forecast to raise $100,000-$200,000 at a blockbuster auction of rare Hollywood memorabilia.
Also going under the hammer at Julien's Auctions will be the "most important collection" of Star Trek memorabilia ever auctioned, organizers say, including a jacket worn by Captain Kirk in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."
Read story: http://u.afp.com/JyEk

Obsessed Star Wars fans have started camping outside Hollywood's Chinese Theatre, more than a week before the film opens.

Full story: http://u.afp.com/Jy78

#StarWars

Sudan's former president Omar al-Bashir was sentenced to two years detention in a correctional center for corruption in the first of several cases against the ousted autocrat.
The deposed leader admitted to having received a total of $90 million from Saudi leaders and the trial centered on the $25 million received from Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Read more: http://u.afp.com/JyDZ



With Evo Morales gone, the coca farmers of Los Yungas, a region in Bolivia, are urging the new government to support them against lowering the price of of their "holy leaf" crop.
Read more: http://u.afp.com/JyDS



Algeria's unpopular presidential election was meant to reset the country's politics after months of crisis -- but it exposed a rigid system determined to perpetuate itself, analysts say.
"You get the impression of two parallel Algerias: a ruling class which congratulates itself on organising elections and a populace that holds protests," said Maghreb expert and historian Karima Direche.
Read more: http://u.afp.com/JyRV





Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon in November surged by 104 percent compared to the same month in 2018, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, which provides official data on deforestation.
The 217 square miles deforested that month represent the highest number for any November since 2015.
Read more: http://u.afp.com/JyRK




Make 2020 a year of action.
Environmental activist Greta Thunberg urged young people during a "Fridays for Future" rally in Italy to seize the next decade to fight climate change, and chastised world leaders for acting "as if there is no tomorrow"
Read more: http://u.afp.com/JyL4



Protests in India against a new citizenship law that opponents say is anti-Muslim spread to other regions on Friday, a day after two people were shot dead by police in the northeast of the country -- the epicenter of days of demonstrations.
Read more: http://u.afp.com/JyuF







Supporters of Algeria's newly-elected president Abdelmadjid Tebboune celebrate his election victory at his campaign HQ in the capital Algiers.
Tebboune won the widely unpopular poll without the need for a second-round runoff, the electoral commission said.
Read more: http://u.afp.com/Jy2d



AI 'completes' symphony.
A few notes scribbled in his notebook are all that German composer Ludwig van Beethoven left of his Tenth Symphony before his death in 1827.
Now, a team of musicologists and programmers is racing to complete a version of the piece using artificial intelligence, ahead of the 250th anniversary of his birth next year.
Full story: http://u.afp.com/Jy8m



Five years ago this week, Washington and Havana surprised the world when they agreed to reopen diplomatic ties severed in 1961, but relations have since slid downhill as if on a fresh layer of Cold War ice.
Read story: http://u.afp.com/Jyzx

THAT AWKWARD MOMENT 

OBAMA DOES NOT UNDERSTAND ITS NOT ALL ABOUT HIM 

AND THE POLITE THING IS TO JOIN HANDS IN SOLIDARITY

This is a fat innkeeper worm (Urechis unicinctus).
Thousands of marine worms like this - dubbed "penis fish" for their shape and color - appeared this week on a California beach after a strong winter storm exposed them.
The worms covered Drakes Beach, 50 miles north of San Francisco. 

Read more about these mysterious creatures here 👉 http://u.afp.com/JyRx

After at least three years in darkness, the face of Argentina's Eva Peron is again lit, this time projected onto the side of the Social Development ministry, just days into President Alberto Fernández's first term.

https://www.facebook.com/AFPnewsenglish/videos/2510545919269244/

A hairdresser in Belgrade declares war on lice, opening up a salon that specialises in removing the insects the old-fashioned way, with combs rather than chemicals

https://www.facebook.com/AFPnewsenglish/videos/866618507086123/

After more than six months of protests in Hong Kong, some local residents are not in the mood to celebrate Christmas.

Add caption

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                                                                         ---30---

RED BETWEEN THE LINES WORLD REVOLUTION 2019

Among many key events of 2019, was an explosion of demonstrations across the world as people demanded an overhaul of entrenched political systems and action on climate change.

https://www.facebook.com/AFPnewsenglish/photos/a.163022200402458/2775232082514777

ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS---UPI


MORE DEATHS THAN BY VAPING
More than 4,000 new cases of influenza were confirmed across the country this week as flu season shifts into high gear. The CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 2.6 million illnesses, 23,000 hospitalizations and 1,300 deaths from flu.
More than 4,000 new cases of influenza were confirmed across the country this week as flu season shifts into high gear.

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A top Defense Department official sexually harassed three women on his staff and resigned from his position amid an investigation into the allegations against him, according to the department's internal watchdog.

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Attorneys for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev asked a federal appeals court to order a new trial, arguing jurors that delivered the 2015 conviction were biased.

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Boeing's CST-100 Starliner space capsule is ready for its maiden voyage Dec. 20, NASA said Thursday.

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The Senate gave bipartisan support to Stephen Hahn on Thursday, confirming him as President Donald Trump's pick to head the Food and Drug Administration.

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Prosecutors in New York have filed a motion seeking to revoke the bail of Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-born associate of Rudy Guiliani, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer.

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The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has passed a bill to explicitly prohibit any president of the United States from withdrawing from NATO without Congressional approval.

 

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The U.S. Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump's 50th appellate court judge, reaching the milestone in just three years.


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The U.S. Justice Department said in a federal indictment Thursday a dozen former professional football players conspired to defraud the National Football League's health reimbursement program out of nearly $4 million.

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Southwest Airlines announced Thursday it's reached a settlement with Boeing that includes compensation for losses due to the global grounding of all 737 Max airliners.


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A federal judge in California has ruled against the Trump administration's efforts to divert some $3.6 billion in funding for military construction projects to build permanent barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border.

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The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to pass the annual defense spending bill, authorizing the creation of Space Force and passing a provision that provides all federal workers with 12 weeks paid parental leave.The House of Representatives voted to pass the annual defense spending bill, authorizing the creation of Space Force and passing a provision that provides all federal workers with 12 weeks paid parental leave.

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Many celebrated the news that House Democrats and the Trump administration agreed on the USMCA -- but this is not good news for all farming sectors. Fresh produce growers say they cannot compete with the cheap and abundant supplies of Mexican fruits and vegetables.
American farmers are split in their support for the new United States Mexico Canada trade deal.

New trade deal good for some U.S. farmers, but produce growers wary

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The discovery of an ancient cave painting on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi has pushed the origins of figurative cave painting back further than ever before.

                                                             ---30---

This Is How Extinction Rebellion Is Funded, And Where It Spends The Money

Climate activists reveal the cost of their two-week protest, from events and tech, to "feeding 20,000 rebels a day".

Efforts by Extinction Rebellion activists to shut down Westminster have been boosted by more than £850,000 in public donations – including an “unprecedented” £100,000 in just 12 hours. 

For the past six days, climate change demonstrators have brought parts of the capital to a standstill, blockading roads in and out of Westminster, glueing themselves to government buildings and attempting to ground flights at London City Airport. On Friday, protesters attempted to block the entrance to the BBC headquarters. 

Met Police officers have already made more than 1,200 arrests in connection with the protests, which are due to last for two weeks. 

Ahead of the action, Andrew Medhurst – Extinction Rebellion’s finance coordinator – said he expected the protests to cost “the best part of a million pounds”. 

“I hope there’s a [funding] boost in October, because I’m relying on approximately £15,000 to £20,000 a day to pay for all of this,” he told reporters at an event last week

But less than half-way through the protests, a crowdfunder set up by the group has almost met that figure. On Saturday morning, the amount donated by the public stood at £854,926.

Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters camp in tents around the Monument to the Women of World War II on Whitehall in Westminster, central London, as the climate change protest continued into a second day

According to Medhurst, the biggest spike in donations came after police raided a building where protesters had stored equipment and supplies ahead of the action. 

“On Monday evening we sent an email which basically said: ‘Can you financially support us?’” he told HuffPost UK. 

“Over the course of 12 hours – from around 7pm on Monday until 7am the following morning – we had raised another £100,000. That’s really been unprecedented… of all the spikes we’ve seen, we’ve never seen anything quite as big as that.” 

Medhurst added: “On Saturday afternoon, our crowdfunder said £408,000. It now [as of Friday October 11] says £835,000, so that’s basically £427,000 in six days.” 

But it is not just people out of the public eye who have offered financial backing to Extinction Rebellion, which is trying to force the government to publish its plans for a climate emergency. 

On Thursday, it emerged that Sir Christopher Hohn – one of the UK’s wealthiest men – had donated £50,000 to the cause. 

He told The Telegraph he had given the money “because humanity is aggressively destroying the world with climate change and there is an urgent need for us all to wake up to this fact”. 

Meanwhile, Extinction Rebellion’s financial reports reveal £300,000 in donations from rock band Radiohead between March and September, plus £20,000 from Greenpeace.

AND NO MENTION OF GEORGE SOROS 

Between £100,000 and £150,000 has also been spent on “media and messaging” in the two months leading up the protests, Medhurst added.

There is also a budget to train people to be legal observers during arrests, he said, while other cash has been spent constructing quiet areas for protesters to “calm down”. 

Purchasing new tents has also become another major cost, Medhurst explained. 

“One of the things that has happened this week is that police have literally been grabbing and removing the tents of rebels who have been sleeping on the streets of London to an extent we didn’t expect,” he said. 

“So the finance team has been receiving requests from some of our teams to replace the tents of rebels who have had theirs seized.” 

This week, the Met Police revealed officers had cleared six of the 12 sites set up by protesters around Westminster, removing 80 tonnes of equipment – enough to fill eight lorries. 

But the force’s chief Cressida Dick said having to deal with the protests was leaving the service “stretched” and impeding its ability to respond to other crimes. 

FROM HUFFINGTON POST UK

Trump Boasted That His Border Wall Was 'Virtually Impenetrable.' Then an 8-Year-Old Girl Climbed a Replica

BY TARA LAW 

UPDATED: OCTOBER 9, 2019 

When President Donald Trump announced that his signature wall at the U.S.’s southern border would be “virtually impenetrable” while visiting San Diego last month, Rick Weber, who co-founded the Muir Valley rock climbing park in Rogers, Kentucky, was listening.

“You don’t tell a bona fide rock climber something’s impossible to climb,” Weber tells TIME.

Weber took the President’s claim as a challenge. He says he constructed his own replica of the wall, relying on the wall’s official dimensions as well as recent images of the structure. This weekend, Weber is planning to invite climbers attending the “Rocktoberfest” rock climbing festival at the nearby Red River Gorge canyon system in Kentucky to climb the model. Guests will be challenged to compete to climb up and over the wall in the fastest time.

Lucy Hancock, 8, poses with a model of Trump’s border wall constructed by Rick Weber.

Courtesy of Karla Hancock

Trump Boasted That His Border Wall Was 'Virtually Impenetrable'

President Donald Trump announced that his signature wall at the U.S.'s southern border would be “virtually impenetrable” while visiting San Diego last month

TRUMP CALLS THE NEW BORDER WALL A 'WORLD-CLASS SECURITY SYSTEM

'Several people have already managed to climb up the wall replica, including 8-year-old Lucy Hancock. Hancock didn’t use any ropes or other tools to climb the wall, but wore a belay, a safety device designed to catch a falling climber. An adult climber, Erik Kloeker, was up and over the wall in about 40 seconds.

Lucy’s mother, Karla Hancock, tells TIME that her daughter has shown a natural inclination toward politics and rock climbing from a young age. Recently, Karla says Lucy has been interested in immigration, although the third-grader has found the national dialogue about immigration policy to be confusing.

“To her, it’s black and white: If somebody’s hungry, and you have the means to give to them, why couldn’t you?” Hancock says.

In 2017, the Government Accountability Office said that Customs and Border Protection had reported that there were 654 miles of fencing on the border. TIME reported in August that all the walls constructed so far this year have replaced older fencing, but last month Defense Secretary Mark Esper authorized a plan to reallocate $3.6 billion initially set aside for military construction projects to build Trump’s long-touted border wall without congressional approval for the funds. The Defense Department is now aiming to redirect $6.1 billion toward building 295 miles of wall since Trump declared a national emergency in February.

President Trump has said that 20 mountain climbers claimed the border wall design is difficult to climb, but Weber and other climbers have said that seems unlikely.

“We were all very puzzled because none of us in the climbing community had heard of these 20 people that had supposedly tried this wall,” Weber says.

The bollard-style wall at the border, which could also be described as a fence, consists of long, thin columns, with a flat panel that sticks up out of the top. Trump’s wall at the border will be 18 or 30 feet tall in different areas, and Weber says that he decided to construct the smaller, 18-foot dimension to save money. However, Weber says that since the top panel is the same size regardless of the wall’s height, the experience of climbing the higher wall should not be much more difficult, as climbers would only need to “shimmy” a bit further up the pillars.

Weber also says that he decided to allow the climbers to grab the edge of the top panel because he learned that this would be possible when climbing the actual border wall. According to Weber, he’s seen that there are gaps between each panel in photos of the proposed border wall.

Weber says that grabbing the panel’s edge makes climbing the wall a “piece of cake” for a climber. If there were no gaps, Weber estimates that climbers would need to be significantly taller than Lucy — at least about five feet 10 inches tall — to climb up and over the wall.

Weber says that he meant for the climbing competition to be fun, but also wants to point out that the border wall may be “ineffective.”

“I’m not making an argument that we shouldn’t have a secure border. I’m not doing that at all,” he says. “What I’m trying to do is to make sure that we’re not blowing a lot of money on some silly nonsense of putting up something that he thinks can’t be climbed. Because it can. And will be.”

Karla R Hancock

about a week ago

Remember that border wall replica built by Rick Weber for a competition next weekend in the Red River Gorge? We were able to help perform preliminary testing of the belay system this weekend. Lucy declared it an easy 5.7 with a tough dyno finish. 😂😂😂

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