The top United Nations human rights official said Friday that the siege and bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo constituted “crimes of historic proportions.”
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, a Jordanian prince and the current U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, referred to Aleppo as “a slaughterhouse.”
He added that the siege and bombardment of the city had caused heavy civilian casualties amounting to war crimes.
Zeid asked the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva to set aside “political disagreements” and to refer the situation to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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A Syrian boy receives oxygen as he is pulled from the rubble of a building following Russian airstrikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of Aleppo on Oct. 11. THAER MOHAMMED / AFP – Getty Images
For most people, learning they have a 90 percent chance of developing cancer would be devastating. But for 17-year-old Casey Longstreet, it was a call to action.
“I’m not living in fear. I don’t want to live my life in fear. I want to go out and make a difference in this world,” Casey said.
Casey has a rare mutation of the TP53 gene — a gene that provides the body with instructions for suppressing tumors. Having this mutation gives her a chance of more than a 90 percent of developing cancer.
Her little brother, Tanner Longstreet, had the mutated gene, too. Tanner died from a glioblastoma brain tumor when he was 11.
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The Longstreet family (clockwise from top left): Greg, Marlo, Tanner and Casey. Photo courtesy of Marlo Longstreet
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump attempted to give a funny speech on Thursday night, and it went about as well as you might have imagined.
Dressed in white tie at the annual Al Smith benefit dinner in Manhattan, Trump read a series of jokes ― a few of them good. But by the end of his 15-minute speech, the high-society crowd was openly booing as Trump took a downward spiral of cheap shots at Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
The annual dinner is a fundraiser for the powerful Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, and during presidential election years, both nominees traditionally speak. As Trump made his remarks, Clinton sat a few feet away, laughing a little too hard.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Donald Trump was on his way to his best performance in a presidential debate Wednesday night ― right up to the moment when he refused, twice, to say he would respect the results of November’s presidential election.
It overshadowed everything else that happened on the stage in Las Vegas and arguably told voters everything they need to know about the Republican nominee for president.
Trump’s answer shouldn’t have surprised anybody. For the last two weeks or so, Trump has been going on and on about “rigged” elections, riling up his supporters by warning that Hillary Clinton and her allies were trying to steal the election.
The argument has drawn widespread condemnation, even from fellow Republicans ― partly because his warnings of ballot stuffing in heavily minority cities have such obvious racial overtones, and partly because his pre-emptive questioning of the election results is way outside of the norms of American politics.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
North Korea has warned that it may carry out further nuclear tests and says it is prepared to launch a preemptive strike on the United States if U.S. nuclear forces mobilize against it.
“The U.S. has nuclear weapons off our coast, targeting our country, our capital and our Dear Leader, Kim Jong Un,” a top North Korean official, Lee Yong Pil, said in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
“We will not step back as long as there’s a nuclear threat to us from the United States,” added Lee, who is director of the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for American Studies.
“A preemptive nuclear strike is not something the U.S. has a monopoly on,” he said. “If we see that the U.S. would do it to us, we would do it first. … We have the technology.”
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North Korea Says It Has Conducted Its Strongest-Ever Nuclear Test
Born to a Lithuanian mother and American father, Akiane Kramarik grew up in rural Illinois, just outside Chicago. Around age 4, the young girl realized she had an interest in painting — and within just a few years, she would become one of the most well-known prodigies in the art world.
When Akiane began painting, she says she had begun experiencing visions that she was eager to express artistically. Once she did, people took notice, and the stunning realism and emotion in Akiane’s work led her to be featured on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” at age 10. As Akiane told Oprah back then, she believed her talent came from one place: God.
Akiane wasn’t raised with religion, but her visions and art felt truly divine. One of her most popular paintings at the time was a portrait of Jesus, which she painted at 8 years old. Today, Akiane is 21 and her works feature everything from people to animals to the abstract. As Akiane tells “Oprah: Where Are They Now?” her technique has indeed changed over the last decade.
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A work by Akiane Kramarik
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Attention U.S. travelers going abroad: You now can bring home all the Cuban rum and cigars you want.
The Obama administration announced Friday a new round of executive actions designed to increase trade and travel with the communist island. And this is the one many Americans have been waiting for — no more restrictions on the island’s famed rum and cigars.
Under the new rules, which go into effect Monday, travelers can purchase unlimited quantities of Cuban rum and cigars in any country where they are sold so long as they are for personal consumption. Sorry American couch potatoes: You can’t order Cuban rum and cigars online and have them shipped to your home.
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Are they really that much better than other cigars?
Covering Donald Trump rallies has never been easy for journalists. Members of the press are often the target of jeering by unruly crowds that are egged on by the candidate himself.
But as the campaign falters and Trump spins tales of a media conspiracy, the scene appears to be getting even uglier.
In Ohio on Thursday, Trump claimed that allegations he groped several women were “lies, corruption and false accusations of the crooked Hillary campaign and the mainstream media,” according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Earlier in the day in Florida, he said the media was at “war,” with an agenda to elect Clinton “at any cost, at any price, no matter how many lives they destroy.”
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Trump supports jeer reporters as they arrive at a campaign rally in Cincinnati on Thursday.
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The Real O’Neals is a dead show walking. That’s not a statement on its quality, though admittedly, the season two premiere that aired Tuesday night isn’t the show’s best effort. Instead, it’s a pessimistic prediction about how much time the show has left.
The premiere episode followed Kenny (Noah Galvin) as he tried to establish an LGBTQ club at his Catholic high school, running into not administrative problems, but a lack of interest from other students. It’s the kind of “Kenny is proud, but must stand alone” story we got a lot of in season one, and you’d think we might go somewhere else this year. Those developments are coming, with Kenny’s first boyfriend on the way, but this premiere was a safe return.
Unfortunately, that’s about all that’s safe about The Real O’Neals these days. In the wake of star Galvin’s June interview with Vulture, in which the young star critiqued and joked about multiple other celebrities, it feels like the ABC sitcom is walking a tightrope — and it’s only getting thinner.
Four women came forward Wednesday night with allegations of Donald Trump sexually assaulting them.
The New York Times began the wave of accounts with a bombshell report on two women, Jessica Leeds and Rachel Crooks, who say Trump groped them. Both had told close friends of being assaulted by Trump, but neither had gone public with their story until Wednesday. A third woman, Mindy McGillivray, also accused Trump of groping her in a story published by the The Palm Beach Post shortly after the Times article appeared. And later Wednesday, People writer Natasha Stoynoff said Trump had attempted to force himself on her while she was interviewing him.
Three of the alleged incidents happened in the early to mid-2000s, while one was 30 years ago. Two occurred at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate in South Florida. All four paint a disturbing picture of a man who 11 years ago was recorded boasting he can sexually assault women at will because of his fame.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
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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.
A Syrian boy receives oxygen as he is pulled from the rubble of a building following Russian airstrikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of Aleppo on Oct. 11. THAER MOHAMMED / AFP – Getty Images
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
A work by Akiane Kramarik
Are they really that much better than other cigars?
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
James' World 2 