Eight people are dead and at least 11 injured after a truck mowed down pedestrians and cyclists and rammed into a school bus in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon.
The suspect, 29-year-old Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, is in police custody.
The first five people killed were identified as friends from Argentina in New York to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their graduation. One Belgian was also among the dead.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called the incident an “act of terror.”
At least eight people were killed and 11 people injured Tuesday afternoon after a man drove a Home Depot rental truck down a bike path in lower Manhattan in New York City, striking several people, authorities said.
According to police, the driver went down the wrong way of a bike path on the West Side Highway, hitting pedestrians and cyclists. He then rammed into a Stuyvesant High School bus, injuring two adults and two children. (One of the children is in critical condition, a New York Department of Education official confirmed.) The suspect then exited the vehicle brandishing what police described as “imitation firearms,” later identified as a paintball gun and a pellet gun. A police officer then confronted and shot the driver, who was then transported to the hospital.
“This was an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of terror, aimed at innocent civilians,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a press conference Tuesday evening.
In Indianapolis, the director of the state’s largest organization helping people find Affordable Care Act insurance had to lay off nine of 13 staff members last month because the federal government had just taken away more than 80 percent of the grant that paid for their work.
In Atlanta, festivalgoers at the annual Pride weekend in mid-October were mystified that members of Insure Georgia had a table set up, because they thought President Trump had gotten rid of the health-care law.
And across Ohio, residents starting to phone a call center for appointments with coaches to renew their coverage are being told that the service no longer exists and that, for help, they should go to a website, a hotline, an insurance broker, a county health department or — if all else fails — their member of Congress.
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The Affordable Care Act’s fifth enrollment season faces a multitude of challenges when it begins on Wednesday. (Healthcare.gov)
Even as President Trump was on Twitter insisting that the indictment of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was meaningless because it involved activities unrelated to Trump or the campaign came news that former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos had pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with, wait for it, Russia.
The Manafort news drew the bigger headlines Monday morning — understandable given his high-profile role at the top of the Trump campaign. But, the Papadopoulos guilty plea — and the fact that he has been cooperating with the special counsel investigation since his July arrest — strikes me as significantly more problematic for Trump and his White House in the medium-to-long term.
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This paragraph from the FBI’s guilty plea agreement with Papadopoulos is incredible:
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“In truth and in fact, however, and as set forth above, defendant PAPADOPOULOS met the Professor for the first time on or about March 14, 2016, after defendant PAPADOPOULOS had already learned he would be a foreign policy advisor for the Campaign; the Professor showed interest in defendant PAPADOPOULOS only after learning of his role on the Campaign; and the Professor told defendant PAPADOPOULOS about the Russians possessing” dirt” on then-candidate Clinton in late April 2016, more than a month after defendant PAPADOPOULOS had joined the Campaign.”
So, Papadopoulos copped to lying to the FBI about the timing of his contacts with Russians. In his initial interview in January 2017, Papadopoulos was insistent that he had reached out to his foreign contact “The Professor” (amazing!) before he had formally joined the Trump presidential campaign. He was arrested in July, pleaded guilty in October and appears to have been cooperating in between.
President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was indicted Monday on charges that he funneled millions of dollars through overseas shell companies and used the money to buy luxury cars, real estate, antiques and expensive suits.
The charges against Mr. Manafort and his longtime associate Rick Gates represent a significant escalation in a special counsel investigation that has cast a shadow over Mr. Trump’s first year in office.
The two men appeared in the Federal District Court in Washington on Monday afternoon and pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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Paul Manafort surrendered to federal authorities on Monday.Published OnCreditImage by Alex Brandon/Associated Press
A federal judge on Monday partially blocked enforcement of key provisions of President Donald Trump’s memorandum banning transgender people serving in the military.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly blocked provisions of the memorandum concerning the enlistment and retention of transgender military service members, holding that the plaintiffs “have established that they will be injured by these directives, due both to the inherent inequality they impose, and the risk of discharge and denial of accession that they engender. “
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The judge also blasted Trump’s initial abrupt announcement via Twitter that came “without any of the formality or deliberative processes that generally accompany the development and announcement of major policy changes that will gravely affect the lives of many Americans.”
In partially granting a preliminary injunction pending appeal, the judge said the plaintiffs — current and aspiring service members who are transgender — are “likely to succeed” on their due process claims.
13 haunted hotels across the U.S.. Have fun folks!
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Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colo.If you thought the twin girls from “The Shining” were creepy, your hair will rise even higher at the sight of the elegant RIP couple gallivanting at the Stanley Hotel (1909) in Estes Park. The ghostly duo are Freelan Oscar and Flora Stanley, the hotel’s original owners; the plinking sound emanating from the ballroom is the wife’s piano. The hotel inspired novelist Stephen King and draws horror-fiends with its evening ghost tours, eerie underground tunnel and Victorian seances.Historic Hotels of America
Doctors were baffled when a 21-year-old woman was admitted into an Italian hospital for “sweating blood” from her face and her hands, a condition she’s had for three years, according to two physicians from the University of Florence.
It’s a condition few doctors have seen, and some have questioned whether sweating blood is even possible. Cases of people sweating blood are uncommon, and the Italian floated the idea that the woman may be faking her symptoms.
The bleeding has no clear apparent trigger and can happen while the woman is asleep or during physical activity, wrote doctors Roberto Maglie and Marzia Caproni in a case report published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The bleeding becomes more intense, she told doctors, during times of stress, and the episodes can last from one to five minutes. The woman has isolated herself out of embarrassment, and reported symptoms associated with major depressive and panic disorders, doctors said.
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An Italian woman’s bleeding episodes lasted one to five minutes and were more intense whenever the woman was feeling emotionally stressed. Embarrassed by the bleeding, the woman grew socially isolated, depressed and anxious. (Canadian Medical Association Journal)
There have been so many horrifying stories about male predatory behavior since the Harvey Weinstein story broke earlier this month, but one quote has truly stood out.
In a damning memo about her boss, a Weinstein Co. employee named Lauren O’Connor neatly explained how the Hollywood producer could get away with sexually harassing so many women.
“The balance of power is me: 0, Harvey Weinstein: 10,” she reportedly wrote.
That one sentence sums up more than the situation with Weinstein, now accused of sexual harassing or assaulting more than 50 women. That same power imbalance exists in every corner of the country, in the White House, Congress, the media, police departments, academia, most big law firms, and nearly every major corporate boardroom, corner office and C-suite.
“Weinstein is the embodiment of the power differential that plays out all over the workplace in the United States,” said Teresa Boyer, the director of the Anne Welsh McNulty Institute for Women’s Leadership at Villanova University.
A slight girl all of 6, she leaves the modest family farm, where the father minds the livestock and the mother keeps a painful secret, and walks out to the main road. Off she goes to primary school, off to the Sisters of Mercy.
Her auburn hair in ringlets, this child named Catherine is bound for Tuam, the ancient County Galway town whose name derives from a Latin term for “burial mound.” It is the seat of a Roman Catholic archdiocese, a proud distinction announced by the skyscraping cathedral that for generations has loomed over factory and field.
Two miles into this long-ago Irish morning, the young girl passes through a gantlet of gray formed by high walls along the Dublin Road that seem to thwart sunshine. To her right runs the Parkmore racecourse, where hard-earned shillings are won or lost by a nose. And to her left, the mother and baby home, with glass shards embedded atop its stony enclosure.
Behind this forbidding divide, nuns keep watch over unmarried mothers and their children. Sinners and their illegitimate spawn, it is said. The fallen.
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A shrine built to honor the children.Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York Times
You won’t hear about her death from officials investigating the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, but you should know her name and her story.
She was Isabel Rivera González.
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Rivera was 80. She loved to dance, and was known in this hilly enclave of Puerto Rico for her Saturday-night merengue moves. In family photos displayed at her funeral last week, she was shown laughing near a shoreline as flamingos tiptoed behind her. In a black-and-white image, she beamed as she held an infant, one of her five children. Those children described their mother as healthy and full of energy late into her years — a woman who lit up a room.
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Rivera survived Hurricane Maria on September 20 huddled next to her boyfriend, Demencio Olmeda, 76. The storm’s winds tore out their curtains and windows, swirling debris in the sky, knocking out power and water service and killing, officially, 51 people.
In the world, human beings are facing various problems. People who are full of greed, anger, and ignorance are seen to be fighting with each other in words and deeds. As the fighting continues, various problems such as civil wars, wars of aggression, and wars of aggression are occurring. As world peace is being destroyed, humans are facing unbearable problems. Innocent children and women are not getting the rights they deserve and deserve. I can't think of one thing every time. What is it? The United Nations. If we look at the responsibilities and duties of the United Nations, I think it is not suitable for solving the problems that are happening in the world today. In fact, the United Nations and the World Security Council, such an organization must rule the world, must be able to give orders, and must have various ways to obey orders. There must be no organization that can influence more than that organization. There should be experts from each country. They can even dominate the superpowers like the US, China, and Britain. Only then will global peace be achieved quickly. Now, if a country with power develops more militarily, economically, or socially than its own country, then powerful countries will jealously seek out enemies and wage war. Or they will attack with fighter jets. In this, innocent people are losing their lives. No one understands the value of a life. You should think about how to achieve global peace by controlling these. If the US continues to be the permanent president of the UN, world peace will never be achieved. If you think carefully, no one sees that they are working for the common good, but for their own benefit, for the benefit of their own country. The permanent president of the UN and the Security Council has rejected this, As a young Rohingya, I have come to realize that only by electing the president and secretary from among the countries in the world through a secret ballot system and governing the world fairly can we achieve global peace. The United Nations and the Security Council are organizations in which any country must govern, give orders, and make them obey their orders. For example, only when a defendant is tried in court can we hold the leaders of the countries in check and control them, can we achieve global peace smoothly. Otherwise, it will not be easy for powerful countries to use various excuses to end this war every year, every year, for the benefit of themselves and their countries. No country's leaders pay any attention to the words of the United Nations and the Security Council. If we look at it in practice, look at the Rohingya issue. Myanmar is a small country. Even that country has been under siege for 8 years. What action can be taken? Why is the UN and the Security Council Powerless? Without such Power, how can the organization bring about global peace? Everyone should think about it. Whether there is a veto or a strong one, all countries in the world can only achieve global peace if they are subject to the UN and the Security Council. Seek peace in the quiet embrace of nature. Peace is an indispensable need of the human race. It is not as if one person can kill another person, and it is as if one country can attack another country, but instead of trying to build peace, we must try to destroy the peace now, and the world is getting hotter and is on the verge of collapse. I especially appeal to all the world experts to urgently try to bring about peace in all parts of the world. Mr, Noor Muhamed Arkhan Rohingya Youth Myanmar
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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Puerto Rico’s uncounted hurricane deaths
