Currentaffairsnews (Headlines)

America's first black billionaire and founder of the BET television network doesn't believe any of the current Democratic challengers are capable of defeating Donald Trump in 2020.Bob Johnson told CNBC that the president "has always been at a position" where the election is "his to lose".

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Russia’s Avangard hypersonic boost-glide missile is about to operational.

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Black Friday blizzards and snow expected from Nevada to the Upper Midwest and into New England. Meanwhile, severe thunderstorms are headed south.

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Hundreds of protesters marched Saturday through downtown Khartoum to demand justice for those killed in demonstrations against Sudan's now ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir. More than 250 people were killed and hundreds injured in the months-long protests that erupted in December 2018, according to umbrella protest movement Forces of Freedom and Change. Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for 30 years, was deposed by the army in a palace coup on April 11 after the demonstrations triggered by an acute economic crisis.

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Germany is to tighten its laws against anti-Semitic hate crimes in the wake of last month's failed attack on a synagogue by a far-Right gunman. “I am ashamed that Jews no longer feel safe in Germany and that so many are even thinking of leaving the country,” Christine Lambrecht, the justice minister, told German MPs. “We have to send a clear signal against anti-Semitism.” Under the planned changes, crimes with an anti-Semitic motive will attract heavier sentences. The move comes after a synagogue in east Germany narrowly escaped becoming the scene of a massacre last month. Stephan Balliet, a German national who released a far-Right "manifesto" before the attack, failed in his attempts to break into the synagogue which was packed with 51  people marking Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. He later turned his gun on bystanders, killing two people. While the Halle attack was the highest profile incident, it was by no means an isolated case. Just days before, a Syrian man was stopped by security guards as he tried to enter Berlin’s best known synagogue armed with a knife and shouting “Allahu akbar” and “F*** Israel”. Anti-Semitic crimes across Germany rose by 10 per cent to a total of 1,646 last year, but it is the figures for violence that are most alarming. Violent anti-Semitic crimes rose by 60 per cent, with 62 offences leaving 43 people injured. More than 50 people were trapped inside the synagogue while the gunman tried to gain entry Credit: Craig Stennett for the Telegraph They include the case of an Israeli man who was attacked and whipped with a belt while wearing a Jewish kippah skullcap in central Berlin in April last year. Adam Armoush, an Israeli Arab who lives in Berlin, is not Jewish but was wearing the kippah in an attempt to prove Berlin was safe for Jewish people. In the wake of that incident felix Klein, the German government’s anti-Semitism commissioner, issued a warning to Jewish men not to wear skullcaps in public for their own safety. Mr Klein later retracted his warning after a public outcry. In another case in July last year, a Jewish Syrian man wearing a Star of David pendant was attacked and beaten by a group of people when he stopped to ask for a light for his cigarette in central Berlin. Anti-Semitic incidents last year also include one an attack on a Jewish restaurant in the east German city of Chemnitz. Masked men broke surrounded the entrance to the restaurant and broke the windows with stones while the owner was trapped inside. Current German laws recognise discrimination against a particular group of people as an aggravating factor in any crime that can lead to a heavier sentence. But the planned changes will explicitly name anti-Semitism for the first time. The change is part of a package introduced after the Halle synagogue attack. Other measures include laws obliging social media networks to inform the authorities of online threats and incitement to hatred. “This is an important step towards consistent punishment of anti-Semitic crimes,” said Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. “With the planned amendment to the law, the federal government is living up to its commitment to fight anti-Semitism resolutely and protect Jewish life.” “Anti-Semitic offences are not just attacks on individual people of the Jewish faith, they always an attack on our values, on our constitutional state, and on our democracy as a whole,” said Georg Eisenreich, the regional justice minister for Bavaria, where prosecutors recently announced they will prioritise anti-Semitic crimes.

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Iraqis kept up angry anti-government protests in Baghdad and the south on Saturday to demand a broad overhaul of a system seen as corrupt and under the sway of foreign powers, a day after the premier vowed to quit. Protesters have hit the streets since early October in the largest grassroots movement Iraq has seen in decades, sparked by fury at poor public services, lack of jobs and widespread government graft. The toll spiked dramatically this week as a crackdown killed dozens in Baghdad, the Shiite shrine city of Najaf -- where another protester was killed Saturday -- and the southern hotspot of Nasiriyah.

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London Metropolitan Police closed London Bridge and London Bridge Station is also closed. City of London police shot the man, who died at the scene.

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Bill O’Reilly’s promotional tweet for his interview with President Trump went viral on Thursday, but not in the way he likely would have wanted.

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A Chicago police officer is being investigated for body-slamming a man who spat on his face, authorities said Friday. The officer approached the man for drinking alcohol at a bus stop, police said. “While a single video does not depict the entirety of the interactions between the police and the individual, this particular video is very disturbing,” Lightfoot said.

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The second part of a double-barreled storm is forecast to unload heavy snow and create difficult travel over a large part of the northeastern United States, including some major cities from Sunday to Monday.A winterlike storm from the Midwest will move in this weekend, then hand off to a new coastal storm that strengthens by Monday.Accumulating snow is forecast to occur in Boston; Hartford, Connecticut; New York City and even to some extent around the Trenton, New Jersey, and Philadelphia area from the storm. The heaviest snow, on the order of 6-12 inches is forecast from the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania to central Massachusetts and southwestern New Hampshire. However, pockets of 12-18 inches are in store for the Catskills and Berkshires, where an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 24 inches is expected.Heavy snow is in store for much of the Hudson, Mohawk and Connecticut river valleys with a few inches as far south as parts of the Delaware and Lehigh valleys.Part of the storm will bring ice, rain and a wintry mix along the Interstate-95 corridor from Philadelphia to New York City and Boston, with the ice and mix to occur during Sunday into Sunday night. Conditions are likely to be a wintry mess around the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where the Packers will take on the Giants during Sunday afternoon. Farther south and west, drenching rain is in the offing for the NFL game between the 49ers and Ravens at Baltimore, and perhaps in Pittsburgh for the Browns and Steelers match up.A significant buildup of ice is forecast over parts of the central Appalachians to southern New England with dangerous travel conditions and the risk of falling tree limbs and power outages. How damaging the ice storm is will depend on whether the primary form of precipitation is sleet or freezing rain. Sleet tends to bounce off, while freezing rain weighs down trees and power lines.The middle part of the storm is likely to be the warmest during Sunday night. This is when just enough warm air is likely to sweep in from the south and the Atlantic to bring plain rain to coastal areas of the upper mid-Atlantic and southeastern New England. However farther inland, a transition from wet snow to more powdery snow is in store in some areas and a wintry mix or ice to snow in others as a storm along the coast strengthens and begins to pull in colder air.Rain showers will change to snow showers from the Ohio Valley to the central Appalachians during Sunday night and Monday. Locally a coating to an inch or two of snow can accumulate in these areas.During Monday, cold air is likely to collapse toward the mid-Atlantic and southern New England coast to bring a change to accumulating snow. While an accumulation of a coating to an inch or so is possible around Philadelphia, up to a few inches may fall on the New York City area with several inches likely around Boston. Much heavier snow is likely in the northern and western suburbs of New York City and Boston, with a few inches possible well north of Philadelphia.Should the storm strengthen a bit more, heavy snow may fall right in New York City and a few inches might occur in Philadelphia on Monday. Boston could pick up a foot of snow in such a case where rain does not hold back the accumulation.Some schools that are scheduled to be in session on Monday may have delays or cancellations. Flight delays and cancellations are likely from Boston to New York City and Philadelphia. Ripple-effect days can be felt not only in the Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh areas, but across much of the nation as crews and aircraft are likely to be displaced as the storm also affected some of the major Midwest hubs this weekend. For those with flexible travel plans are encouraged to postpone Sunday and Monday trips.Travel conditions are likely to improve dramatically over the region on Tuesday as crews will have been out plowing and/or treating the road with ice-melting compounds. However, snow is likely to start the day in eastern New England. Download the free AccuWeather app to check the forecast in your area, as well as points along your travel route. Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.

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The Republican campaign promoted a wild conspiracy theory that Omar had illegally shared sensitive government information with Qatar and Iran.

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A 2019 Colorado law bars law enforcement officials in the state from holding a person based only on a request from ICE.

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(Bloomberg) -- The man suspected of stabbing two people to death near London Bridge had been released early from jail after a terrorism conviction, allowing an attack in the heart of the city that is disrupting the U.K.’s general election campaign two weeks before the vote.Officers shot and killed the 28-year-old attacker, who was wearing a fake suicide vest after members of the public wrestled him to the ground on London Bridge, on the edge of the city’s financial district. He was tackled by passersby moments after carrying out the attack at about 2 p.m. on Friday.Boris Johnson broke away from campaigning on Friday for the Dec. 12 election to rush back to Downing Street for a security briefing on the attack. Speaking afterward, he praised the civilians who tried to stop the suspected terrorist before police arrived, and declared that “Britain will not be cowed” by the incident.On Saturday, Johnson met with police at the site of the attack and used the opportunity to criticize the U.K.’s criminal justice system, which routinely allows for jail sentences, even for criminals committing violent crimes or acts of terrorism, to be reduced.“The practice of automatic early release, when you cut a sentence in half and let serious and violent offenders out, is not working,” he told the BBC after his meeting with police.Click Here for the Day’s Events as They HappenedThe suspect, identified by police as Usman Khan, was released from prison on parole in December 2018, the police said in a statement. Khan was one of nine people convicted in 2012 for offenses ranging from a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange to planning a terrorist training camp. Khan originally received an indeterminate sentence, which was changed on appeal in 2013 to 16 years, the BBC reported.Johnson also praised the men who fought the attacker and pinned him to the ground on London Bridge until the police arrived. Khan began the attack while attending a conference on prisoner rehabilitation at a building called Fishmongers’ Hall next to the bridge.A Polish chef grabbed an ornamental narwhal tusk off a wall and used it to confront the attacker, while another chased Khan with a fire extinguisher, Sky News reported. A third man who aided the victims and tried to fend Khan off was a convicted murderer who was close to completing his sentence, the Telegraph reported, while another man stopped his car and helped the others force Khan to release the two knives he was carrying.“I want to pay tribute to the sheer bravery of the members of the public who went to deal with and put their own lives at risk,“ Johnson said.The first victim of the attack was identified as Jack Merritt, 25, a University of Cambridge graduate who was a coordinator of the conference that Khan attended, the BBC reported.With voters set to go to the polls on Dec. 12, the impact of such a potentially disruptive event is unclear. But the revelation that the attacker was a former convicted terrorist is likely to put pressure on the ruling Conservatives -- who traditionally view crime prevention as one of their stronger cards -- to explain why the person was allowed out of jail.Johnson also told the BBC that his government would review sentencing policies in the wake of the attack.Campaigning in the U.K.’s last election in 2017 was thrown off course by two terrorist attacks, including one in the same area of London just five days before the vote. In that incident, eight people were killed and 48 injured.In the aftermath of the 2017 attack, U.S. President Donald Trump triggered a diplomatic row when he criticized London Mayor Sadiq Khan over his response, and their spat has continued ever since. The U.S. president arrives in the U.K. next week for a NATO summit, which Johnson hopes will be a low-key visit.Trump spoke to Johnson on Saturday and expressed his condolences following the attack, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. On Friday, Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke by phone and each suspended their election campaigns in the capital for the rest of the day. Johnson’s team said he would also cancel his events on Saturday so he can focus on the security response.But speaking to television reporters just before a meeting of the government’s ‘Cobra’ crisis committee on Friday evening, Johnson highlighted his election pledge to hire extra police officers.‘Hunted Down’“Anybody involved in this crime and these attacks will be hunted down and will be brought to justice,” he said. “This country will never be cowed or divided or intimidated by this sort of attack and our British values will prevail.”After the alarm was raised on Friday lunchtime, armed police cleared cafes and shops in the London Bridge area. Officers burst into restaurants in the popular Borough Market area on the other side of the river, urging diners to leave immediately. They shouted “Out, out, out,” to people at the Black and Blue bar, and ordered customers to walk away with their hands on their heads. Nearby, police shouted to pedestrians to “run.”The police asked people to avoid the area. Mayor Sadiq Khan said Saturday on BBC’s Radio 4 that while there will be “more high visibility police officers present in London” through the weekend “there’s no reason to believe there is an increased threat” from terrorism. The bridge will remain closed for some time, he said from the site on Saturday afternoon.(Updates with Trump-Johnson phone call from 15th paragraph.)\--With assistance from Tim Ross.To contact the reporters on this story: Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.net;Greg Ritchie in London at gritchie10@bloomberg.net;Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, James Amott, Andrew DavisFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Tens of thousands of protesters, primarily in Europe and Asia, hit the streets on Friday to make a fresh call for action against global warming, hoping to raise pressure on world leaders days before a UN climate summit. Carrying signs that read "One planet, one fight" and "The sea is rising, so must we", thousands flocked to Berlin's Brandenburg Gate for the latest "Fridays for Future" protest inspired by 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg. In total, about 630,000 people demonstrated across more than 500 cities in Germany, the Fridays for Future movement said.

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Police said they were called to London Bridge just before 2 p.m. local time on Friday afternoon for reports of a stabbing.

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(Bloomberg) -- Opposition leader Keiko Fujimori walked free from a Lima prison Friday night after Peru’s highest court annulled her 18-month preventive jail sentence for obstructing a money-laundering probe.Speaking to reporters outside the jail, Fujimori said the Constitutional Court had corrected a process that was arbitrary and “full of abuses,” and said she’ll keep cooperating with the investigation.“I’m going to take time to reconnect with my family, recuperate, and later on we’ll decide what I’ll do in the second stage of my life,” Fujimori said, according to video broadcast by the Canal N network.The 44-year-old daughter of former autocrat Alberto Fujimori was jailed 13 months ago on allegations she sought to use her party’s congressional majority and contacts in the judiciary to derail a money-laundering probe against her. Prosecutors allege she received $1 million in campaign donations from Brazilian builder Odebrecht SA, though haven’t formally charged her. She denies any wrongdoing.In the court’s Nov. 25 ruling, three justices said prosecutors didn’t provide sufficient evidence directly linking Fujimori to the payments from Odebrecht. A fourth said she no longer posed a threat to the investigation after Congress was dissolved in September.Prosecutors investigating Fujimori and other politicians accused the court of thwarting Peru’s fight against corruption by releasing Fujimori. “The decision is surprising, incongruous and anti-technical, and suspiciously, it has political overtones,” prosecutor Jose Domingo Perez said Friday. He’s asked the judiciary to contest the ruling, La Republica newspaper reported.The Constitutional Court annulled a preventive jail sentence against former president Ollanta Humala and his wife Nadine Heredia last year.Voters will elect a new Congress on Jan. 26 and analysts don’t expect any political party to win a majority.To contact the reporter on this story: John Quigley in Lima at jquigley8@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Steve GeimannFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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London Metropolitan Police closed London Bridge and London Bridge Station is also closed. City of London police shot the man, who died at the scene.

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Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) isn't bouncing back after a precipitous decline in the Democratic presidential race -- and fingers are starting to point at her campaign manager.Juan Rodriguez has drawn the ire of both camapaign staffers and outside observers, The New York Times reports. "This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly," state operations director Kelly Mehlenbacher wrote in a resignation letter obtained by the Times.Mehlenbacher clarified she still supported Harris as a candidate, but did not have confidence in the campaign's leadership. She specifically cited the campaign's decision to move people from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland, and then "lay them off with no notice" and "without thoughtful consideration of the personal consequences to them."Harris and other senior staff members were reportedly blindsided and angered by the extent of the layoffs, and some aides reportedly found out about them from junior aides and the press rather than Rodriguez himself.One of Harris' congressional supporters, Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), said she told the senator she needs to make a change. "The weakness is at the top, and it's clearly Juan," she said. "He needs to take responsibility -- that's where the buck stops."More stories from theweek.com God's gift to America? 5 scathingly funny cartoons about the Trump-ified GOP Democrats are running into Trump's economic buzzsaw

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It didn't go as planned...

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The U.S. began the formal withdrawal process from the Paris Climate Agreement earlier this month.

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Dozens of people in protest-swept Lebanon staged a candlelit vigil outside Iraq's embassy on Saturday to denounce the excessive use of force against demonstrators there. Participants at the Beirut observance raised pictures of Iraqi protesters who have been killed in an unprecedented anti-government movement. Some raised the Lebanese flag, while one woman wrapped the Iraqi tricolour around her shoulders.

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Danielle Stella campaign account also tweeted a picture of a stick figure being hanged with a link to a blog post about her comments.

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Simon Dawson/ReutersLONDON—A frenzied knife attack by a known terrorist who was let out of prison early on parole was halted by a posse of Londoners that included a convicted killer on day release.The first deadly terror attack in Britain for two years spilled out of a Cambridge University event on rehabilitating ex-cons. A university spokesman told The Daily Beast that the terrorist Usman Khan had been invited to the event, but could not confirm reports that he had addressed the symposium, which included former prisoners and prison staff.A more detailed account of the attack emerged Saturday as the Islamic State claimed that one of its attackers carried out the stabbing, the group’s Amaq news agency reported. The announcement didn’t provide any evidence for the claim.Khan, 28, was wearing a tracking device on his ankle and a hoax suicide belt around his waist when he walked up the grand staircase inside the historic Fishmongers’ Hall, pulled out two knives, and threatened to blow up the building.He was run out of the event by attendees grabbing makeshift weapons to confront the killer, who had already inflicted fatal injuries on two people and wounded several more. One man picked up a fire extinguisher, another pulled the unicorn-like tusk of a narwhal off the wall and gave chase.Khan fled onto London Bridge with the avenging conference guests in hot pursuit. The man with the antique whale cudgel was identified by The Times as a Polish chef called Luckasz, who suffered lacerations in the attack. “Being stabbed didn’t stop him giving him a beating,” a colleague who did not want to be named told the paper.Some of the others who turned on the killer reportedly were ex-cons attending the event.They sprayed him in the face with the fire extinguisher and managed to force him to the ground even though he was flailing at them with knives that were taped to his wrists. Several people held him down while police cars raced to the scene.A man named James Ford grabbed one of the terrorist’s knives and carried it to safety, staggering south across the bridge away from the melee and warning clueless pedestrians to back away from a potential explosion.As cell-phone footage spread across social media and onto global news networks, the man was labelled a hero. Some of those watching the video, however, were appalled by what they saw.Angela Cox, 65, received a phone call from police liaison officers telling her to switch on the TV. She thought the man who had disarmed the terrorist was still in prison.Ford had been convicted of the brutal murder of her niece in 2004. He approached the 21-year-old, who was said to have the mental age of a 15-year-old, in an area of woodland and slit her throat. The judge at the time said: “What you did was an act of wickedness. You clearly have an interest in the macabre and also an obsession with death including murder by throat cutting.”He was out of prison on day release on Friday, reportedly to attend the University of Cambridge Criminology department’s “Learning Together” event, although a spokesman was unable to confirm.> — “He murdered a disabled girl. He is not a hero.”“He murdered a disabled girl. He is not a hero,” said Cox. “They let him out without even telling us. It was a hell of a shock.”The authorities will also have to explain why Khan was allowed out of prison to murder at least two people—one man and one woman who have not yet been named. In 2012, he was convicted of plotting to carry out terror attacks in London and set up a terror training camp on land owned by his family in Pakistan.The judge said Khan, who was just 19 at the time, was one of the ringleaders of a small British terror network that followed the teachings of U.S.-born Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki. The eight men, who had been tracked for months by MI5, were convicted on terror offenses including a plot to blow up the London Stock Exchange—they also had a target list that included the U.S. Embassy and the home address of Boris Johnson, who is now prime minister.Five of them were given conventional jail sentences, but the judge said Khan and two of his colleagues were so dangerous that they should be locked up indefinitely under Imprisonment for Public Protection legislation.“They were about the long term business of establishing and operating a terrorist military training facility in Pakistan, on land owned by the family of Usman Khan to which British recruits, whom they would recruit, would go to receive training,” the judge said. “Furthermore it was envisaged by them all that ultimately they, and the other recruits may return to the UK as trained and experienced terrorists available to perform terrorist attacks in this country.”His ruling that they should remain in custody until they were no longer deemed a threat was quashed by the court of appeal in 2013. Britain’s head of counterterror policing Neil Basu said late on Friday night that Khan was released last year. The Times reported that he had agreed to wear an electronic monitoring device and live under restrictions including a curfew at his home in Staffordshire in the West Midlands.He would likely have told the officials monitoring his movements that he was traveling down to London to take part in the rehabilitation event “celebrating five years of Learning Together.”Khan had just taken part in a workshop on storytelling and creative writing when he revealed his true motivation for taking part in the event on the banks of the River Thames.Professor Anthony Glees, the director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, who contributed to the parliamentary Homeland Security Group, said it was clear that the authorities and the academics who wanted to help had failed to identify the true scale of the threat from this man.“That is a deep irony, the do-gooder culture in universities actually gave him the opportunity; how daft was that?” he said to The Daily Beast. “Once a jihadist always a jihadist.”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.

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An 18,000-year-old puppy unearthed in Siberia could prove to be the missing link between dogs and wolves, scientists believe.  The puppy was discovered perfectly preserved by permafrost near Yakutsk, eastern Siberia last summer and carbon dating has revealed it has been frozen for around 18,000 years.   Researchers at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden announced this week that extensive DNA tests have so far been unable to confirm whether the animal was a dog or a wolf.  The experts believe this may be because the canine comes from the period when dogs were domesticated and hope the creature will prove crucial to uncovering when exactly the evolution began.   "It's normally relatively easy to tell the difference between the two," researcher David Stanton told CNN. Dogor was so well-preserved because he was found in a tunnel that was dug into the permafrost "We have a lot of data from it already, and with that amount of data, you'd expect to tell if it was one or the other. The fact that we can't might suggest that it's from a population that was ancestral to both - to dogs and wolves". A 2017 study published in the journal Nature Communications suggested that modern dogs were domesticated from a single wolf population 20,000 to 40,000 years ago but tests on this specimen could offer further clues as to the precise period. "We don't know exactly when dogs were domesticated, but it may have been from about that time. We are interested in whether it is in fact a dog or a wolf, or perhaps it's something halfway between the two," Mr Stanton added. Scientists believe some modern dogs descended from just one wolf population that lived continuously in Europe for thousands of years.  If confirmed to be a dog, scientists believe it will be the earliest confirmed "It seems that dogs were domesticated from a lineage of wolves that went  extinct," said Mr Stanton. "So that's why it's such a difficult problem to work on to understand where and when dogs were domesticated." The researchers' genome analysis has revealed that the puppy was a male so the scientists, after discussing with their Russian colleagues, have named the puppy 'Dogor'. The name means "friend" in Yakutian - as well as referencing the question "dog or wolf?" The scientists hope that further genome data tests on the creature will reveal more about Dogor's origins. Photographs released by the Centre for Palaeogenetics show the puppy in an almost perfect condition, with its nose, whiskers and teeth remarkably intact. Dogor can be seen almost completely covered in fur except for an exposed rib cage.  Dogor was discovered in a remote part of north-east Siberia and is so well-preserved because it was found in a tunnel that was dug into the permafrost. He was later sent to Oxford University's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit for dating, which revealed that the corpse dated back at least 18,000 years, meaning Dogor would have lived during the last Ice Age. He is being kept in Russia while, in Sweden, Mr Stanton and his colleague Love Dalen study his rib bone.

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HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - China warned the United States on Thursday that it would take "firm counter measures" in response to U.S. legislation backing anti-government protesters in Hong Kong, and said attempts to interfere in the Chinese-ruled city were doomed to fail. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed into law congressional legislation which supported the protesters, despite angry objections from Beijing, with which he is seeking a deal to end a damaging trade war. Protesters in Hong Kong responded by staging a "Thanksgiving" rally, with thousands, some draped in U.S. flags, gathering in the heart of the city.

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Many on the left have made it their mission to hinder and undermine Trump's government: Opposing view

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Two Carnival Cruise Line passengers died in a bus crash while on an independent tour in Belize on Wednesday.

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Over a foot of snow is forecast in mountainous parts of Colorado, Utah and Arizona on Friday before the storm system slips toward the upper Midwest, the National Weather Service said. Freezing rain will likely turn to snowy blizzards in parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan beginning on Friday night, with more than 18 inches of snowfall possible in some mountainous areas, the service said. More than 4 million Americans were expected to fly and another 49 million expected to drive at least 50 miles or more this week for Thanksgiving, according to the American Automobile Association.

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Iraqi officials say four protesters were killed amid ongoing violence in Baghdad and southern Iraq, hours after Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi announced his intention to resign. Security and hospital officials say one protester was killed and 18 wounded Friday by security forces who fired live rounds and tear gas to repel them on Baghdad’s historic Rasheed Street, near the strategic Ahrar Bridge. Officials say three protesters were shot dead by security forces in the southern city of Nasiriyah, bringing the total killed there to six on Friday.

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Bill O’Reilly’s promotional tweet for his interview with President Trump went viral on Thursday, but not in the way he likely would have wanted.

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"They've been doing it for so long that they were truly comfortable that they were never going to get caught."

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CANBERRA, Australia -- A Chinese defector to Australia who detailed political interference by Beijing. A businessman found dead after telling the authorities about a Chinese plot to install him in Parliament. Suspicious men following critics of Beijing in major Australian cities.For a country that just wants calm commerce with China -- the propellant behind 28 years of steady growth -- the revelations of the past week have delivered a jolt.Fears of Chinese interference once seemed to hover indistinctly over Australia. Now, Beijing's political ambitions, and the espionage operations that further them, suddenly feel local, concrete and ever-present."It's become the inescapable issue," said Hugh White, a former intelligence official who teaches strategic studies at the Australian National University. "We've underestimated how quickly China's power has grown along with its ambition to use that power."U.S. officials often describe Australia as a test case, the ally close enough to Beijing to see what could be coming for others.In public and in private, they've pushed Australia's leaders to confront China more directly -- pressure that may only grow after President Donald Trump signed legislation to impose sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials over human rights abuses in Hong Kong.Even as it confronts the specter of brazen espionage, Australia's government has yet to draw clear boundaries for an autocratic giant that is both an economic partner and a threat to freedom -- a conundrum faced by many countries, but more acutely by Australia.Prime Minister Scott Morrison continues to insist that Australia need not choose between China and the United States. A new foreign interference law has barely been enforced, and secrecy is so ingrained that even lawmakers and experts lack the in-depth information they need.As a result, the country's intelligence agencies have raised alarms about China in ways that most Australian politicians avoid. The agencies have never been flush with expertise on China, including Chinese speakers, yet they are now in charge of disentangling complex claims of nefarious deeds, all vigorously denied by China.In the most troubling recent case, first reported by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, the Australian authorities have confirmed that they are investigating accusations made by Nick Zhao, an Australian businessman who told intelligence officials that he had been the target of a plot to install him in Parliament as a Chinese agent.Zhao, a 32-year-old luxury car dealer, was a member of his local Liberal Party branch. He was a "perfect target for cultivation," according to Andrew Hastie, a federal lawmaker and tough critic of Beijing who was briefed on the case. He told The Age that Zhao was "a bit of a high-roller in Melbourne, living beyond his means."Another businessman with ties to the Chinese government, Zhao said, offered to provide 1 million Australian dollars ($677,000) to finance his election campaign for Parliament. But a few months later, in March, Zhao was found dead in a hotel room. The state's coroner is investigating the cause of death.In a rare statement, Mike Burgess, the head of Australia's domestic spy agency, said Monday that his organization was aware of Zhao's case and was taking it very seriously.The Chinese government, however, called the accusations a sign of Australian hysteria."Stories like 'Chinese espionage' or 'China's infiltration in Australia,' with however bizarre plots and eye-catching details, are nothing but lies," the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, said at a regular news briefing Monday.Beijing has similarly dismissed the case that emerged last week, which involves a young asylum-seeker named Wang Liqiang.Wang presented himself to the Australian authorities as an important intelligence asset -- an assistant to a Hong Kong businessman who Wang says is responsible for spying, propaganda and disinformation campaigns aimed at quashing dissent in Hong Kong and undermining democracy in Taiwan.China asserts that he is simply a convicted swindler. On Thursday, a Communist Party tabloid, The Global Times, released video of what it said was Wang's 2016 trial on fraud charges, where a young man confessed to bilking someone out of $17,000.Xiang Xin, the man Wang identified as his former boss, has denied having anything to do with him, or even knowing him.The challenge of the case is just beginning. While some analysts have raised doubts about Wang's assertions, elements in the detailed 17-page account that he gave to the authorities as part of an asylum application are being taken seriously by law enforcement agencies worldwide.Taiwan's Ministry of Justice detained Xiang and another executive with the company Wang said he worked for, China Innovation Investment Limited. Investigators in Taiwan are looking into assertions that their business acted on behalf of Chinese intelligence agencies.Other details in Wang's account -- about the kidnapping of booksellers in Hong Kong, spying on Hong Kong university students, and the theft of military technology from the United States -- are still being examined by Australian officials."Australia's peak intelligence agencies are being put to the test," said John Fitzgerald, a China specialist at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. "It's a tough call, and they cannot afford to get it wrong."What's clear, though, is that they are helping to push the public away from supporting cozy relations. Polls showed a hardening of Australian attitudes about China even before the past week.Now Hastie, the China hawk and Liberal Party lawmaker who chairs Parliament's joint intelligence committee, says his office has been overwhelmed by people across the country who have emailed, called and even sent handwritten letters expressing outrage and anxiety about China's actions in Australia.Questions of loyalty continue to swirl around another Liberal Party member of Parliament, Gladys Liu, who fumbled responses to questions in September about her membership in various groups linked to the Chinese Communist Party.The espionage cases also follow several months of rising tensions at Australian universities, where protests by students from Hong Kong have been disrupted, sometimes with violence, by opponents from the Chinese mainland.Several student activists have told the authorities that they have been followed or photographed by people who appear to be associated with the Chinese Consulate.It's even happened to at least one high-profile former official, John Garnaut. A longtime journalist who produced a classified report on Chinese interference for former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2017, he recently acknowledged publicly that he had been stalked by people who appeared to be Chinese agents -- in some cases when he was with his family.These actions of apparent aggression point to a version of China that Australians hardly know. For decades, Australia has based its relations with Beijing on a simple idea: Let's get rich together. And the mining companies that are especially close to Morrison's conservative government have been the biggest winners.But now more than ever, the country is seeing that for the Communist Party under President Xi Jinping, it's no longer just about wealth and trade."The transactions aren't satisfying them enough; they want more," said John Blaxland, a professor of international security and intelligence studies at the Australian National University. "They want to gain influence over decisions about the further involvement of the United States, about further protestations to Chinese actions in the South China Sea, in the South Pacific, in Taiwan."Blaxland, along with U.S. officials, often points out that Australia's biggest export to China, iron ore, is hard to obtain elsewhere reliably and at the prices Australia's companies charge. That suggests that the country has more leverage than its leaders might think.Hastie, who was recently denied a visa to travel to China as part of a study group that included other members of Parliament, agreed. In an interview, he said the recent revelations were "the first time the Australian public has a concrete example of what we are facing."Now, he added, it's time to adapt.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company

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A transgender paedophile has sued the NHS for refusing her reassignment surgery after she transitioned from male to female while in prison.  The 60-year-old, known only as KK for legal reasons, is serving an indefinite sentence for public protection for making indecent photographs of children, and also has a previous conviction for sexual activity with a young girl. She has been in prison for over a decade and has been living as a woman for the last eight years, The High Court heard.  The prisoner claims the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust has unlawfully adopted a "de facto policy" of refusing to refer serving prisoners with gender dysphoria for gender reassignment surgery (GRS). But the trust argues that the reason KK was not referred was because "the treating clinicians at a world-class clinic for gender dysphoria did not consider it clinically appropriate to refer her for surgery". In brief | Transgender prisoners policy On Thursday, KK's barrister David Lock QC told a judge in London that the refusal to refer his client was "solely based on the fact that the claimant has lived as a woman in prison for the last eight years as opposed to living outside of prison". He submitted that the trust refused to make the referral over "concerns that there was a possibility that the claimant may not wish to continue to live as a woman following her release from prison". Mr Lock concluded that KK "was forced to endure her present level of distress by being denied otherwise clinically appropriate medical treatment because of the minority chance that she would later express regret at having had GRS". In written submissions, Jenni Richards QC, for the trust, argued that the court should not interfere in a decision involving "the application of clinical expertise in a developing area of medical practice". She said the number of patients affected by gender dysphoria was relatively small, adding: "The number of patients affected who are in prison is smaller still.  "The number of prisoners who are imprisoned as a result of sexual offences, which further complicates the clinical picture, will be still smaller." Ms Richards said GRS is "major, irreversible surgery which may destroy existing parts of a patient's body, personality and sexuality". She argued that "the fact that the claimant's real life experience (as a woman) has been acquired in prison ... is relevant to the determination of whether surgery is an appropriate intervention for her, at this stage and in her present circumstances". Mr Justice Supperstone, who is hearing the case, is expected to reserve his judgment.

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Is Trump using "health attacks" on US diplomats in Havana as an excuse to punish Cuba?

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Iraq’s embattled prime minister offered his resignation on Friday, following the bloodiest day in weeks of unrest. Adel Abdel Mahdi, who took up the post of premier last year, said he would submit to the parliament a formal letter requesting my resignation to "preserve the blood" of Iraqis. Demonstrators greed the news with cheers, throwing rice and dancing to music in Baghdad's Tahrir (Liberation) Square. “Long live the revolution, long live the heroes. Thank you to the people,” one protester said over a loudspeaker. Mr Mahdi’s decision came hours after Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's top Shia Muslim cleric, gave a sermon urging lawmakers to reconsider their support for the government, in a major boost to Iraqi demonstrators who have taken to the streets against a ruling class. "It's our first victory, and we're hoping for many more," shouted one demonstrator. "It's also a victory for the martyrs who fell," he said. An Iraqi anti-government protester waves a national flag close to a concrete barricade amidst clashes with security forces along the capital Baghdad's Rasheed street Credit: AFP Mr Mahdi’s resignation was one of the protesters’ demands, but it is unlikely to see them leave the streets after the crackdown by security forces. More than 45 were reported dead in just a 24-hour period between Wednesday and Thursday night, in an unprecedented level of violence against protesters by the government. Some 26 people were killed in the southern city of Nasiriyah after security forces tried to clear one of the main bridges into the city, 12 were killed in the holy city of Najaf and four in the capital, Baghdad. The demonstrations are the largest the country has seen in decades, but also the deadliest, with nearly 400 people killed and more than 15,000 wounded since they began last month. Iraq's "enemies and their apparatuses are trying to sow chaos and infighting to return the country to the age of dictatorship ... everyone must work together to thwart that opportunity," Mr Sistani said. The government "appears to have been unable to deal with the events of the past two months" and "parliament, from which the current government emerged, must reconsider its choices and do what's in the interest of Iraq," he said, urging them to stop killing protesters. Iraqi protesters carry the Iraqi national flag and shout slogans shortly after the resignation of Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel-Mahdi Credit: REX The unrest in Iraq's south was unleashed after protesters stormed the Iranian consulate in Najaf late on Wednesday, accusing the neighbouring country of propping up Iraq's government. Tehran demanded Iraq take decisive action against the protesters, saying it was "disgusted" by developments. In response, Mr Mahdi, who has received Iran's support, ordered military chiefs to deploy in several provinces to "impose security and restore order" - but chaos reigned instead. Men in civilian clothes opened fire at demonstrators and tribal fighters deployed in the streets in their defence. "We had blocked off the roads and bridges over the past four days and security forces moved in on us to try to open up the bridges. They opened fire leading to a bloodbath," said Hussein, a 32-year-old lawyer from Nasiriyah. "What's happening in Nasiriya is unbelievable. Nothing justifies this use of violence against us. We, the people, are extremely angry. Our blood is boiling. Our brothers were killed unjustifiably. Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International's Middle East research director, also used the word "bloodbath" to describe the crackdown in Nasiriyah and accused security forces of "appalling violence against largely peaceful protesters".

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The White House reportedly has no record of a phone call Donald Trump claims exonerates him over a scandal which is threatening to bring down his presidency.The US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified to congress earlier this month that Mr Trump had made clear to him in the call that there was “no quid pro quo” with Ukraine.

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A humble loaf of bread has become a new symbol for Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters who have embraced a slew of colourful and sometimes surreal memes as they push the Beijing-backed government for reforms. Activists have begun bringing loaves of "Life Bread" -- a local brand beloved by Hong Kongers -- to demonstrations, or leaving them next to protest walls after a video of a police officer taunting protesters went viral. The footage was shot last week during a siege by police of Polytechnic University where a tense stand-off unfolded between riot officers and hundreds of activists who barricaded themselves inside.

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Black Friday blizzards and snow expected from Nevada to the Upper Midwest and into New England. Meanwhile, severe thunderstorms are headed south.

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Delta, American Airlines, Southwest, Emirates, and more have posted Black Friday and Cyber Monday flight deals. We expect more sales, too.

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A black hole with a mass of about 70 times that of the sun is lurking across our galaxy.

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A former Republican congressman said he would “probably vote to impeach” Donald Trump if he were still serving in the US House of Representatives while suggesting the president's scandals are “infuriating" current GOP House members.Charlie Dent, a frequent critic of Mr Trump who resigned from Congress last year, said he has heard from several of his former Republican colleagues who are “absolutely disgusted and exhausted by the president’s behaviour”.

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The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said it would send a team to investigate the crash. Seven individuals in the Piper PA-32 aircraft died and police will continue to work jointly with the TSB as the investigation continues, Kingston Police said http://bit.ly/2QZt8tp in a statement.

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Over a foot of snow is forecast in mountainous parts of Colorado, Utah and Arizona on Friday before the storm system slips toward the upper Midwest, the National Weather Service said. Freezing rain will likely turn to snowy blizzards in parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan beginning on Friday night, with more than 18 inches of snowfall possible in some mountainous areas, the service said. More than 4 million Americans were expected to fly and another 49 million expected to drive at least 50 miles or more this week for Thanksgiving, according to the American Automobile Association.

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A massive winter storm that has already prompted warnings from Arizona to Wisconsin will be lumbering east in coming days, almost certainly interfering with Thanksgiving return-travel plans for millions, The Washington Post reports. By the time it's finished, the storm, created by the same conditions that caused the "bomb cyclone" in California and Arizona earlier in the week, could pummel an area stretching from the Sierra Nevadas to New England -- where a nor'easter is predicted to begin on Sunday night. "This storm will... produce significant snow and blizzard conditions across the Northern Plains through Saturday before moving to the Great Lakes and Northeast Sunday and Monday," the National Weather Service said in a statement. USA Today reports that Accuweather is forecasting up to three feet of snow in South Dakota's Black Hills region, where "visibility could be so low at times it may be difficult to determine where the road surface actually is." So if you happen to be stuck at a relative's house this weekend: stay inside, avoid discussing politics, and try not to get too sick of that days-old cranberry sauce.More stories from theweek.com Democrats are running into Trump's economic buzzsaw 5 gut-bustingly funny cartoons about politics and Thanksgiving Knives Out does what so many of the best mysteries do: Carve up the rich

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(Bloomberg) -- The suicide of a popular South Korean singer has prompted calls in the country to overhaul laws on sexual assault and to more harshly punish revenge porn.Koo Hara, 28, was found dead at her home in Seoul on Sunday. Her last message on Instagram showed her staring into a camera lens from beneath blankets on her bed with a message of “good night.” Police say a note was found at the scene in which she expressed hopelessness.Many in South Korea were already aware of her past that included assault by a former boyfriend who she alleged was threatening to release a sex video of her. The two most popular hashtags on social media in South Korea this week called for punishment of the ex-boyfriend and for the definition of sexual assault to be revamped.A petition filed with the president’s office demanding changes to laws had one quarter of a million signatures. Lawmakers said it is time to push forward measures stalled in Parliament that make it easier to impose harsh penalties on those who engage in revenge porn or clandestinely take sexually charged videos.Liberal lawmaker Lee Jung-mi of the minor Justice Party said in a social media post that Koo’s death shows that change is needed because the nation “cannot neglect illegal filming and circulation of videos.”Lee in September 2018 introduced a bill to revise how South Korea’s criminal law defines rape. She said recent verdicts on sexual crime show the current standards don’t focus on consent but how much “resistance” there was from the victim.President Moon Jae-in has called for a wide-ranging investigation of sex offenses linked to the entertainment industry and ordered the reopening of inquiries into past allegations. He issued a decree in June 2017 that set punishment of up to five years in prison, with the measure mostly pertaining to filming through hidden cameras.Moon has not commented on Koo’s death or on revamping sexual violence laws. On Nov. 19 he did comment on women’s social status saying, “It’s still quite a dark reality compared to the rest of the world. I can tell you that I will pay more attention on gender equality.”Some of those who are fighting for changes to the laws say they are frustrated with the pace of change.“The current justice system sends a message to women that it will never be able to protect them,” said Yun Dan-woo, a writer and and women’s rights activist.Recent CasesSome recent cases illustrate critics’ concerns. In May 2018, a male judge ruled that a man wasn’t guilty of raping a woman who walked to a motel with him, according to the Law Talk legal journal and local media. Surveillance video presented as evidence showed the man pulling the woman. The judge acknowledged she had rejected sex but ruled this wasn’t a case where she was in danger, the reports said.In a case in November, a male judge found a man not guilty of rape even though he had sex with a woman against her will. The judge ruled she gave consent by holding hands and giving the defendant an extra piece of meat at a restaurant, according to the legal journal and local media.Koo, who used the stage name HaRa, was a member of the group Kara, which had nearly a decade-long run as a top act in the notoriously fickle K-pop music industry. One of group’s biggest songs, “Step,” garnered nearly 100 million views on YouTube, helping Koo win fame in Japan, China and other major markets outside of Asia.In Koo’s case, a judge found her boyfriend guilty of assault yet acquitted him of illicitly filming Koo and trying to blackmail her. On Friday, dozens of people rallied in front of the Seoul District Court, demanding that the judge in the case resign.K-Pop’s Dark Side: Assault, Prostitution, Suicide, and Spy camsAlthough the laws on clandestine recording could be applied to revenge porn -- posting without permission explicit images of individuals that may be taken in acts including consensual sex -- that sort of prosecution is almost unheard of in South Korea. More than 40 U.S. states have laws banning the practice as do other countries.Proponents of more stringent measures say they want to act now while Koo’s death is fresh in the public mind and may give a push for change.“Korean society has this misconception of rape of always being done by some random monster who comes out of nowhere in a dark alley at night, which is why it doesn’t acknowledge that someone close and intimate is more likely to be the perpetrator,” said Claire Park, an activist at the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center.(Adds rally in on Friday in Seoul in the 14th paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Jihye Lee in Seoul at jlee2352@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Niluksi Koswanage at nkoswanage@bloomberg.net, ;Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz, Jodi SchneiderFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Two Carnival Cruise Line passengers died in a bus crash while on an independent tour in Belize on Wednesday.

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The Trump-Fox News Feedback Loop was on full display Wednesday morning when President Donald Trump’s favorite morning show backed his patently absurd claim that liberals want to change the name of Thanksgiving—an idea he obviously got from Fox’s recent round-the-clock “War on Thanksgiving” coverage.At his Tuesday night campaign rally in Florida, the president insisted that “some people” want to change the name of the holiday and “don’t want to use the term Thanksgiving,” likening this supposed anti-Thanksgiving sentiment to another infamous right-wing media invention.“And that was true with Christmas. Now everybody is using Christmas again. And remember I said that,” Trump declared. “Now we’re gonna have to do a little work on Thanksgiving. People have different ideas on why it shouldn’t be called Thanksgiving. Everybody here loves the name Thanksgiving and we’re not changing it!”During Wednesday morning’s broadcast of Fox & Friends, the hosts appeared to give credence to the president’s conspiracy, all while sidestepping the role their network had in planting the idea in his head.“Last night, the president was talking about somebody who was apparently talking about changing the name of the holiday,” co-host Steve Doocy noted while airing a clip of the president’s remarks.“I don’t think there’s a huge push to change the name of Thanksgiving, is there?” Brian Kilmeade wondered aloud.“You know, in 2015 there was a rumor Obama wanted to change the name but that was debunked,” Doocy responded, referencing a Snopes fact-check of a viral email campaign from a few years ago. “So, perhaps what he is talking about is just all these stories about your carbon footprint and the amount of energy you use to travel over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house.”In recent weeks, Fox News’ opinion shows have run countless segments insisting that liberals and progressives want to “cancel” the holiday and fight a “War on Thanksgiving,” tying it all to a single HuffPost opinion piece about the environmental impact of Thanksgiving dinner. The article, while providing readers with steps to reduce their carbon footprint, never called for the holiday to be abolished or even for Americans to stop celebrating it.Later in the segment, fill-in co-host Emily Compagno accepted the president’s premise that there was a concerted effort to change the name of Thanksgiving, providing a counterargument to these imaginary critics.“I think the issue that a lot of people have to—with potentially changing that name—is the fact that in that name we’re expressing gratitude and whatever historical connotations we can acknowledge,” she said. “It still doesn’t take away from the fact that this is the day that we are to give thanks and gratitude for our loved ones and blessings.”In its news recap of the president’s remarks, meanwhile, the network framed Trump’s baseless claim with the following headline: “Trump vows not to change the name of Thanksgiving despite cries from the ‘radical left’”. Interestingly, there was no reference to Fox’s consistent coverage of the “War on Thanksgiving” in the piece.This isn't the first time that Fox News has taken a single HuffPost piece to accuse the left of trying to "cancel" something holiday-related. Last year, the network's digital site published several articles while its opinion shows ran multiple segments denouncing liberals' supposed complaints that Christmas classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was "seriously problematic," all based on a largely satirical HuffPost video.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet 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.

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Beijing on Wednesday accused developed countries including the US of doing too little to curb global warming, ahead of a UN summit discussing controversial issues including climate compensation. China is the world's second-largest economy and the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, but has repeatedly argued that developed nations should lead on tackling international climate obligations.

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BAGHDAD/NAJAF, Iraq, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces shot dead at least 45 protesters on Thursday after demonstrators stormed and torched an Iranian consulate overnight, in what could mark a turning point in the uprising against the Tehran-backed authorities. At least 29 people died in the southern city of Nassiriya when troops opened fire on demonstrators who blocked a bridge before dawn on Thursday and later gathered outside a police station.

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(Bloomberg) -- A woman who was suspended by TikTok after posting viral videos critical of the Chinese government’s actions in Xinjiang said in a Twitter post that the Chinese video-sharing app has restored her account and apologized.New Jersey teenager Feroza Aziz had posted a series of videos that initially looked like makeup tutorials, before quickly morphing into stinging rebukes of China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims. “So the first thing you need to do is grab your lash curler, curl your lashes, obviously, then you’re going to put them down and use your phone that you’re using right now to search up what’s happening in China,” she said in one.“I thought if I made this sound like a makeup tutorial, people would want to watch it,” Aziz earlier told CNN. “When I spoke straightly about the Uighur Muslims, that video got taken down.”Read more: Who Are the Uighurs and Why Is China Locking Them Up?TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Inc., blamed a “human moderation error” for the removal of her viral video, noting in a lengthy statement that a previous account belonging to Aziz was removed for posting a video including an image of Osama bin Laden, which violated their guidelines. The company says Aziz’s video doesn’t violate its standards, shouldn’t have been removed, and was only offline for 50 minutes total. TikTok says it is conducting a broader review of its content moderation process.U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern that the app’s growing popularity poses a national security risk, including censorship by the Chinese government. The U.S. has leveled similar claims of potential censorship against Chinese tech companies like Huawei Technologies Co., while sanctioning others like security camera maker Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd. for their involvement in Xinjiang.The incident is the latest flare-up for companies that have to navigate political sensitivities in China as well as government and consumer backlash in the U.S. and elsewhere to actions seen as caving to China’s political ambitions.Chinese state television in October dropped all National Basketball Association coverage after a team official’s tweet in support of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters, as well as almost all Chinese sponsors cutting ties with the league. Meanwhile, a Dreamworks Animation children’s movie was banned in neighboring Vietnam because it contained a map of the South China Sea reflecting China’s expansive and widely disputed claims.\--With assistance from Melissa Cheok and Jihye Lee.To contact the reporter on this story: Max Zimmerman in Tokyo at mzimmerman90@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Niluksi Koswanage at nkoswanage@bloomberg.net, Michael Sin, Derek WallbankFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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