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If Trump decides to strike here is how Tehran could respond.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 10:19 AM

A suspected serial killer has been charged with murdering four women and leaving their bodies in abandoned houses in Detroit.Police had arrested Deangelo Martin in June for allegedly stabbing and sexually assaulting a 26-year-old woman, who managed to escape, the previous month.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 18, 2019 2:53 PM

Here's the missile that will seriously boost the fighter jet's firepower.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 9:24 AM

An Indiana couple has been charged with neglect after allegedly changing their daughter's age from 11 to 22, moving to Canada and leaving her behind.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 8:14 AM

Cash-starved Air India is putting its crew on a diet, changing their inflight menu to special low-fat meals. Dhananjay Kumar, the state-run airline's spokesman, said Wednesday that the objective is to provide healthy and cost-effective meals to crews on domestic and international flights. Kumar declined comment on media reports that the cost per meal, mostly vegetarian, will fall to one-third of the current 500-800 rupees (up to $11) per meal.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 18, 2019 7:57 AM

REUTERS/Chris WattieThe progressive reputation of Justin Trudeau is in ruins Thursday morning after a third instance emerged of the Canadian prime minister wearing racist dark face-paint.The first photo that surfaced, showing Trudeau in 2001 wearing brownface as part of an Aladdin costume, would have been enough to turn some voters off him forever. But, within hours, a second photo was published of him wearing blackface to sing the Jamaican folk song “Day-O,” followed by a third video of him sticking his tongue out wearing dark makeup.What was initially assumed to be a deeply stupid and offensive costume at one theme party now looks like it was just one instance of a deeply troubling habit.Trudeau admitted he “made a mistake” late Wednesday after the first photo was published. That showed him wearing brownface makeup to an “Arabian Nights”-themed gala at the Vancouver private school where he taught in 2001.The picture, found in West Point Grey Academy’s yearbook and published by Time magazine, shows Trudeau with his face, neck, and hands darkened—along with him wearing a turban and robes. While he was not the only one pictured in costume at the gala, he appeared to be the only one pictured in brownface. “Obviously I regret that I did it, I’m really sorry I did it,” Trudeau told reporters Wednesday evening. “I take responsibility for my decision to do that. I should have known better... I didn’t know it was racist at the time.”Media relations lead of the Liberal Party of Canada, Zita Astravas, confirmed to Time that it was Trudeau in the photo. “It was a photo taken while he was teaching in Vancouver, at the school’s annual dinner which had a costume theme of ‘Arabian Nights.’ He attended with friends and colleagues dressed as a character from Aladdin,” Astravas said. In addition to the yearbook photo, he also disclosed to reporters that he once participated in a high school play “with makeup on”—but he did not elaborate further. That photo was then found shortly afterward.The third video, published Thursday morning by Canada’s Global News, appears to show Trudeau’s face covered in dark makeup while he sticks his tongue out. It appears his arms and legs are also covered in dark makeup. A senior member of the Liberal campaign reportedly told the network that it was Trudeau in the video but didn’t comment further.The photos, which surfaced as Trudeau is ramping up his re-election campaign, sparked an outpouring of criticism on Twitter, where many accused the Canadian prime minister of racism. Trudeau announced his re-election bid this month amid accusations he meddled in a corruption case. When asked by reporters if he would consider resigning over the photo, he said only that the incident “calls for important conversations.”“I have worked all my life to create opportunities for people to fight against racism, I can stand here and say I made a mistake... I should have known better then, but I didn’t and I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m going to be asking Canadians to forgive me... I’m disappointed and pissed off at myself.”New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh blasted the prime minister, claiming that his public calls to fight discrimination and his behavior in private were at odds.“Who is the real Mr. Trudeau? Is it the one behind closed doors, the one when the cameras are turned off that no one sees?” Singh asked, according to The Globe and Mail. “Is that the real Mr. Trudeau? Because more and more, it seems like it is.”The National Council of Canadian Muslims also said Trudeau wearing brownface was a “reprehensible” act that “hearkens back to a history of racism, slavery, and an Orientalist mythology that is unacceptable.”“While we recognize that people can change and evolve over two decades, it is critical that the prime minister immediately and unequivocally apologize,” executive director Mustafa Farooq told the newspaper.Earlier this year, a similar yearbook photo of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam wearing a racist costume was uncovered—prompting calls for him to resign. He is currently still in office. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey also recently apologized for participating in a blackface skit in college.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.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 11:54 AM

My daughter Meadow was murdered in the Parkland school shooting in Florida last year. It was the most avoidable mass murder in American history. And last week, Governor Gavin Newsom just forced into every school in California the policies that made it inevitable.The Parkland shooter was a known-wolf. Before the massacre was over, students knew who did it. He was considered so dangerous when he attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that school administrators banned him from bringing a backpack and frisked him every day for fear that he’d bring a deadly weapon.Even though security staff brought him to the principal’s office all the time, his disciplinary record looked pretty clean on paper. If he had been arrested at school for his crimes, maybe the FBI could have followed through on tips that he would shoot up the school. And if he’d been disciplined for his sub-criminal misbehavior, maybe school administrators could have made a strong case for sending him back to a specialized school for disturbed students, where he so badly needed to be.But the Broward County school district had embarked on a quest to fight the “school-to-prison pipeline” by lowering suspensions, expulsions, and arrests. And school principals responded by systematically sweeping disturbing behavior under the rug. If one individual in the Broward school district made one responsible decision about the killer, the tragedy could have been averted. But you can’t even call what happened a “failure,” because each obviously irresponsible decision makes perfect sense given the policies.The state of California has just lurched far harder on leniency than Broward, by banning suspensions and expulsions for nonviolent offenses.Don’t you dare think that in practice this leniency won’t extend to violence, though. In Broward, 52 percent of teachers fear for their safety. Twenty-four percent have been threatened. Thirteen percent have been assaulted. And only 39 percent think that a student would be suspended if he assaulted them.Beyond leading to an increase in school violence and risk of deadly catastrophe, these leniency policies are profoundly bad for learning and for character. We know what happens when schools ban suspension.In Philadelphia, math proficiency declined by three percentage points, and reading proficiency by seven. Truancy skyrocketed from about 25 percent to over 40 percent, perhaps because even as suspensions for nonviolent offenses fell, suspensions for serious offenses rose.Education researcher Dominic Zarecki studied the effects of suspension bans in several California districts: Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, and Pasadena. The harm to math achievement was large enough to take a student from the 50th percentile to the 39th percentile after three years.Anti-discipline advocates claim that suspensions can be replaced by “restorative justice” and “healing circles.” In reality, that does further damage. A gold-standard study from the RAND corporation found that in Pittsburgh, “restorative justice” harmed academic achievement among black students.Anti-discipline advocates claim that they are fighting the “school-to-prison pipeline.” In reality, their policies increase the flow. The idea that not holding kids accountable for their actions will make them more law-abiding as adults is idiotic. If we tell juveniles there are no consequences for misbehavior, we set them up for failure in the workplace. And we put them at risk for a hard reckoning when they find that behavior that didn’t even get them suspended in school gets them a felony charge when they hit age 18.For evidence, look no further than Los Angeles. As the school board banned suspensions, referrals to law enforcement increased 145 percent. And last year, threats of violence in Los Angeles schools increased by 70 percent.I sent my daughter to public school thinking she was safe. I had no idea there was a kid there so dangerous that they frisked him every day. I had no idea that the school was systematically covering up threats and violence. I didn’t know.I can’t let any other parent make that excuse. That’s why I wrote a book to tell the true story of Parkland. I don’t expect that this article or that book, or that anything, really, will convince the Democratic politicians who run California to think twice about this terrible mistake. My whole life’s mission now is to inform parents.Chances are, your kid won’t get murdered at school. But you have to know about the type of environment you’re putting your child in. Public school in California is now a place where disruption, threats, and even violence can’t even be punished.My advice to California parents: Stretch your wallet to send them to private school. Or keep them in public school and roll the dice.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 18, 2019 6:30 AM

This is a sad excuse for real discussion on climate change and international conflict, two very separate issues.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 5:00 AM

POSTED SEPTEMBER 18, 2019 1:59 PM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu skillfully "played" US President Donald Trump by plying him with inaccurate information, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson said. Netanyahu, who is fighting for his political life after close elections, was "a bit Machiavellian" and would share "misinformation" with the United States, according to Trump's former top diplomat. Tillerson, who was fired by Trump last year, made the observations during a forum Tuesday at Harvard University as reported by The Harvard Gazette, the university's official news outlet.

POSTED SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 12:09 PM