Given the Trump administration's goal of a complete, verifiable denuclearization of North Korea during President Trump's first term, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is eager to maintain U.S.-North Korean engagement. As he prepares for upcoming discussions with the North Koreans, he is leaving one tool conspicuously on the table: the prospect of an official declaration to end the Korean War.

"It's hard to know. I don't want to prejudge precisely where we'll end up," Pompeo said this week when asked if President Trump and Kim Jong Un could sign a declaration to end the war at their next summit. "But make no mistake about it, there is real progress being made."

A protester who said she was sexually assaulted approached Senator Jeff Flake in an elevator Friday after he released a statement saying he would be voting in favor of Brett Kavanaugh for a seat on the Supreme Court.

The unidentified woman could be heard shouting at Flake, R-Ariz., during a CNN live shot before the Senate Judiciary Committee moved toward a vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court Friday morning. Flake had previously been undecided.

“You’re telling me that my assault doesn’t matter,” a woman, audibly emotional, can be heard telling Flake.

“Don’t look away from me,” the woman can be heard saying. “Look at me and tell me that it doesn’t matter what happened to me.”

The woman continues to criticize Flake, saying he is allowing attackers to occupy positions of power.

WikiLeaks has publicised the Interamerican Court of Human Rights decision as a major win for Mr. Assange. How does this win get implemented in the UK if it is a regional American Court?

When did Assange enter the embassy, and why is he there?

Why is Assange not allowed to receive visitors, access the Internet or receive or make any phone calls?

Why does the US government want to prosecute Assange?

What’s so unusual about the United Kingdom’s actions against Mr. Assange?

How is Mr. Assange’s health considering he’s been arbitrarily detained without access to sunlight or fresh air since 19 June 2012?

The Palestinian authority has asked the International Court of Justice to compel the US to shut down its embassy in Jerusalem, because it violates the Vienna convention, which says an embassy must be located in a host country.
The Palestinian government submitted its application to launch proceedings against the US on Friday. The 14-page complaint, released by the UN’s principal judicial body, alleges that the US, as a party of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, has flouted its obligation by setting up an embassy outside the territory of the host state, Israel.

Julie Swetnick, the third woman to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in high school, faced allegations from her former employer that she engaged in “unwelcome, sexually offensive conduct” in 2000.

WebTrends alleged in a lawsuit that, after the company determined she had engaged in “inappropriate conduct,” Swetnick made “false and retaliatory allegations” of sexual harassment against two male co-workers.

Kavanaugh vehemently denied Swetnick’s claims, and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, called the case “bogus,” pointing out that WebTrends dismissed its case.

The woman who charges she was gang-raped at a party where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was present, Julie Swetnick, had a lawsuit filed against her by a former employer that alleged she engaged in “unwelcome, sexually offensive conduct” towards two male co-workers, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

In explaining why I wanted a second front door, I began to describe the assault in detail. I recall saying that the boy who assaulted me could someday be on the U.S. Supreme Court, and spoke a bit about his background at an elitist all-boys school in Bethesda, Maryland. My husband recalls that I named my attacker as Brett Kavanaugh.

We now have proof that this was a lie — a major lie.
This was the basis for the entire story she told the US Senate Judiciary Committee under oath — And this is a lie.
Christine Ford perjured herself.
The problem with Ford’s testimony is that the the second front door was built on their home long before that date.

According to online queries and pictures of the property from as early as 2007, the house in question had two doors in the front since at least 2011 and probably earlier.

Our leading weapons dealers have developed a business model that feeds on war, terrorism, chaos, political instability, and human rights violations.

Modern technologies can now detect and analyze DNA from samples comprised of only 16 cells. But due to the touch-transfer properties of DNA, determining how those cells reached the surface on which they were found is impossible. Tiny amounts of touch-transferred DNA have placed people at locations they had never visited and implicated people for crimes they did not commit.

Washington's mistake of arming the Mujahedeen against the Russians 40 years ago gave us the Taliban. We're doing it again.

There was plenty of blue-check-marked outrage from both sides of Twitter during the Kavanaugh hearings Thursday, but some of the most incisive came from Kurt Schlichter, the former Army colonel turned Townhall.com columnist and political pundit.

Schlichter doesn’t really do anything by halves, as those who have followed him over the years can attest to. So, when it came to the Kavanaugh hearing, he was definitely not displaying a lack of courage in his live-tweeting.

His best tweet of the day may have been in response to Maria Shriver, the niece of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, among an array of Kennedy siblings. It’s that last one that’s important here, however.

Republican Senators Lee, Graham and Hatch were doxxed on Wikipedia on Thursday.

Many Republicans on the Senate Judiciary had their home addresses and phone numbers published on their Wikipedia pages Thursday.

Shortly after Lindsey Graham went off on Senate Democrats for destroying Kavanaugh’s life in order to derail his confirmation, Republicans were doxxed.

The victims included Republican Senators Mike Lee, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Lindsey Graham, reported the Washington Times.

According to Caleb Hull, editor of the Independent Journal Review, the wife of Mr. Hatch “has been receiving calls nonstop ON HER BIRTHDAY and their home address was made public.”

CongressEdits, a bot account that for four years automatically retweets edits to Wikipedia made anonymously from IP addresses associated with the U.S. Congress, said the information was also posted on Mr. Lee and Mr. Graham “from US House of Representatives.”

If Dianne Feinstein cared about Christine Ford and protecting women from the “monster” that is Brett Kavanaugh she would have moved forward when she heard about the allegation months ago. If she really cared about women she would have immediately shared the information with Chuck Grassley and the FBI because Brett Kavanaugh could have attacked more women. Feinsten cares about protecting women, right? Of course not. She knows Brett Kavanaugh isn’t a sexual predator and she held onto the information until the last second when it was clear that Democrats wouldn’t be able to defeat Kavanaugh on the merits.

That’s one of the biggest takeaways from the hearing on Thursday. Feinstein has become a national embarrassment.

Orrin Hatch and Lindsey Graham called her out for it.

The risk of the deadly Ebola virus spreading from Congo is now "very high" after two confirmed cases were discovered near the Uganda border, the World Health Organization says.

The outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever in northeastern Congo is now larger than the previous one in the northwest and more complicated to contain because of a dense, highly mobile population and a rebel threat so serious that some health workers say they're operating in a war zone.

A deadly attack in Beni, the heart of Ebola containment efforts, forced the work to be suspended for two days earlier in the week.

Joy Behar on Friday accused Senate Republicans of wanting to push through the vote for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh without an FBI investigation as a way to retain “white power.”

“The View” co-host was reacting to Thursday’s hearing, during which the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who alleges that he sexually assaulted her during high school decades ago.

Said Behar: “The people on the Republican side, it looks like to me, do not want to investigate this any further. They just want to hold on to their power. They know that this country is getting darker. White Europeans are now 61 percent of the population. … In 2045 it will be 49 percent.”

Nasty Nancy Pelosi, Mad Maxine Waters, and Dirty Dianne Feinstein Gang Raped me in 1901 while I was on a trip to Mars in the Wright Brothers plane with them! Bimbo Barbra Boxer was there also but I can’t verify because she is sick and deranged at the moment! Krazy Kamala Harris heard about it so she may have to come forward as a witness!

Dirty Donna Brazile was on her cell phone telling them what questions to ask me.

All of these women are Catholics so I am sure the Pope and all Bishops and Priests have first hand knowledge. I may gotta subpoena them if President Trump will hear my case!

CNN was there and filmed the whole incident from their base on the Moon! They will not hand over the evidence so I am calling for an investigation by the FBI and my preschool school board.

The parents of the woman who is accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct have a connection to the Supreme Court nominee through his mother, a Maryland state judge, online court records show.

Martha Kavanaugh granted a motion dismissing a 1996 foreclosure action against Ralph and Paula Blasey, according to the records.

Christine Blasey Ford publicly came forward Sunday to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault decades ago when they were both teenagers in prep school.

According to publicly available campaign finance data, Sheldon Adelson – the conservative, Zionist, casino billionaire –is now the biggest spender on federal elections in all of American politics. Adelson, who was the top donor to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Republican Party in 2016, has cemented his role as the top political donor in the country after giving $55 million in recent months to Republicans in an effort to help the party keep its majority in both houses of Congress.

Adelson’s willingness to help the GOP stay in power is likely born out of his desire to protect the massive investment he placed in the party last election cycle. In 2016, the Republican mega-donor gave heavily to the Trump campaign and Republicans, donating $35 million to the former and $55 million to the top two Republican Super PACs — the Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund — during that election cycle.

Iran has issued a number of threats on Friday following official charges made by leaders in Tehran that Saudi Arabia and the UAE funded a terrorist attack on a military parade in a southwest district last Saturday which killed 25 people, including members of the elite Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

Iranian military officials declared "red lines" against the two Gulf countries, threatening war, while in a separate statement a senior cleric said US regional bases will not be safe if "America does anything wrong".

"If America does anything wrong, their bases around Iran would not remain secure,"Ayatollah Mohammadali Movahedi Kermani was quoted as saying by Mizan news agency while leading Friday prayers in Tehran.

And simultaneously the Fars news agency quoted Brigadier General Hossein Salami, deputy head of the IRGC, as saying in reference to the Saudis and Emirates: “If you cross our red lines, we will surely cross yours. You know the storm the Iranian nation can create.”

The ability to vote for local, state, and federal representatives is the cornerstone of democracy in America. With mid-term congressional elections looming in early November, many voices have raised concerns that the voting infrastructure used by states across the Union might be suspect, unreliable, or potentially vulnerable to attacks. As Congress considers measures critical to consumer rights and the functioning of technology (net neutrality, data privacy, biometric identification, and surveillance), ensuring the integrity of elections has emerged as a matter of crucial importance.

With mid-term elections in just two months, Secretaries of State should be pressed to do their jobs and increase security before voters cast their ballots.

Add “a phone number I never gave Facebook for targeted advertising” to the list of deceptive and invasive ways Facebook makes money off your personal information. Contrary to user expectations and Facebook representatives’ own previous statements, the company has been using contact information that users explicitly provided for security purposes—or that users never provided at all—for targeted advertising.

A group of academic researchers from Northeastern University and Princeton University, along with Gizmodo reporters, have used real-world tests to demonstrate how Facebook’s latest deceptive practice works. They found that Facebook harvests user phone numbers for targeted advertising in two disturbing ways: two-factor authentication (2FA) phone numbers, and “shadow” contact information.

Two-Factor Authentication Is Not The Problem

Goldsboro, NC – Water sampling of the Neuse River conducted on behalf of the Upper Neuse Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance following the coal ash spill at Duke Energy’s retired H.F. Lee Plant found levels of arsenic nearly 18 times higher than the North Carolina standard for drinking water supply and fish consumption.

The standard for drinking water supply and fish consumption is 10 micrograms per liter; testing from water sampled from the Neuse near the coal ash spills following Hurricane Florence was 186 micrograms per liter. The city of Goldsboro has a municipal water intake less than ten miles downstream from the plant.

The analysis, conducted by Pace Analytical, also found elevated levels of lead and other heavy metals in the water. That analysis can be found here.

The sample with the highest arsenic level came from a grey plume of ash in the river, which had poured over an actively eroding dam made of coal ash.

Last year, Desiree Collins, a 52-year-old St. Paul resident, learned the hard way what can happen when a K9 officer loses control of his dog. St. Paul police officer Thaddeus P. Schmidt claims he lost control of his K-9, Gabe, when it attacked Collins, ripping her arm into shreds. The entire incident was caught on the body cameras of the officers involved and now, the taxpayers of St. Paul are shelling out over a half million to pay for the officer’s negligence.

The City Council and Collins’ attorney, Andy Noel met behind closed doors this week to discuss and reach the settlement, according to the Star Tribune.

“She’s pleased and she’s glad that she can put this lawsuit behind her and move on with life,” Noel said.

On Friday the State Department announced it is evacuating all non-essential personnel from the US consulate in Basra, Iraq.

The drastic move comes after a month of heavy anti-Iran and anti-Iraqi government protests that have gripped the southern city, which has led to sectarian rioting and the burning of Shia militia buildings, as well as the torching of the Iranian consulate early this month. During the first week of September the US embassy in Baghdad's green zone also came under attack by mortar fire, which US officials and military analysts blamed on Iran-backed militias.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited threats from Iran as the reason for ordering the Basra consulate evacuation, and in a separate statement a senior US official confirmed to CNN that the "ordered departure" was due to "security threats from Iran."

A mere day after the Department of Defense touted its first ever combat engagement in Afghanistan, the multi-billion dollar in development and cutting edge Marine F-35B stealth fighter has now experienced another first — one has crashed near a Marine base in Beaufort, South Carolina.

"A 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing F-35B belonging to Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 (VMFAT-501) stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort crashed in the vicinity of Beaufort, South Carolina at approximately 11:45 a.m. (EST), today," said a statement from the 2nd Marine Air Wing.

The volcano didn’t start slowing down its eruptions until August. P?hoa in the Puna District was especially affected, leaving residents in a constant state of uncertainty.

And of course, the government failed to provide sufficient relief.

It’s no secret that the government – more specifically – FEMA, often fails to act adequately or quickly enough when disaster strikes. FEMA has been cited in on-the-ground reports to turn community help away when people bring food, citing ridiculous regulations. Yet some of the food they provided after Hurricane Matthew was allegedly mal-nourishing and didn’t meet basic calorie requirements. To make matters worse, a year after the hurricane, the crumbling infrastructure still needed repair and families still needed help – yet FEMA froze the Matthew fund, to send those monies to other, more pressing hurricane relief efforts.

Netanyahu's Thursday UN General Assembly speech predictably included the familiar props and visuals condemning Iran over what the Israeli prime minister says is a continuing nuclear program it is hiding from the world's view.

Like pretty much all prior Netanyahu speeches focusing on Iran, he held up a physical "evidence" to illustrate his points as he spoke — this time it was a "proof" that Iran has yet another secret warehouse holding nuclear-related material in the form of an aerial photograph of the Iranian capital marked with a red arrow pointing to a large building.

Though this was perhaps a step up from the cartoon bomb performance at the UNGA in 2012, the act is now a fixture and entirely predictable after many others spanning years, barely eliciting much media excitement compared to six years ago.

But unlike the last number of similar speeches, US intelligence officials have told Reuters that the claims are not true.

The Trump administration and some others in the U.S. government have sent some not-so-subtle hints lately that they are open to a military invasion of Venezuela to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

“It’s a regime that frankly could be toppled very quickly by the military, if the military decides to do that,” President Trump told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

The words seem to offer some encouragement for a coup, which may not come as a surprise because the New York Times published an investigation in early September that found that the Trump administration met secretly with Venezuelan military officers over the last year to discuss an overthrow of Maduro.

The Trump administration pressed ahead Friday with plans to create an “Arab NATO” that would unite U.S. partners in the Middle East in an anti-Iran alliance.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met in New York with foreign ministers from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to advance the project. The State Department said Pompeo had stressed the need to defeat the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations as well ending the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, securing Iraq and “stopping Iran’s malign activity in the region.”

“All participants agreed on the need to confront threats from Iran directed at the region and the United States,” the department said in a statement. It added that the ministers had “productive discussions” on setting up what is to be known as the “Middle East Strategic Alliance” to promote security and stability in the region.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister asked Canada to apologise for demanding the release of Saudi women's rights activists and stop treating the kingdom as "a banana republic" if it wanted to resolve a diplomatic dispute between the two countries.

In August, Saudi Arabia froze new trade with Canada, blocked grain imports, expelled Canada's ambassador and ordered all Saudi students home after Ottawa called for the release of activists detained for urging more rights for women.

The former founder and CEO of Blackwater says he needs just six months and roughly 3,600 men to make the Afghan War look far different from the shitshow it is now.

In an interview with Afghanistan’s TOLO News, Erik Prince once again pitched his idea to privatize the nearly-17-year-old conflict, offering up a force of “contracted veteran mentors” from the United States and NATO countries to serve alongside Afghan security forces.

“Well, I would say six months after the program is fully ramped up, you have a very different situation on the ground, I will commit to that,” Prince said, outlining a plan to provide 36 contractors for each unit of Afghan security forces, who would serve for two to four years at a time.

Yes, you read that right: Erik Prince says he can turn the war around in six months while suggesting his contractors could be there for at least four years.

Moscow is outraged at NATO’s "errant" attacks in Afghanistan, which have become almost a daily reality, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

"We are outraged at the fact that NATO’s ‘errant’ attacks in the country have become almost a daily reality, while no one has been held responsible," the statement reads.

"We believe that the current situation is a result of gross miscalculations the US made in Afghanistan and the White House’s reliance on the use of military force to resolve the situation in the country. We call on Washington to reconsider its short-sighted policy and opt for diplomatic measures aimed at launching an inter-Afghan dialogue," the Russian Foreign Ministry said, adding that Moscow called "for bringing those responsible for crimes against civilians to justice."

On 22 September, an attack during a military parade killed 24 people and wounded 60 others, in Ahvaz (Iran).

Ahvaz is the capital of the Iranian Arab region of Khuzestan. On 22 September 1980, the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein tried to annex this population to Iraq. This unleashed a war between Iran and Iraq. At the time, the overwhelming majority of Iranian Arabs opposed the foreign Iraqi invasion. The military procession on September 22 2018 marked the anniversary of this terrible war, funded by the West against the Khomeini Revolution.

Professor Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, one of the advisers to the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, declared that his country has succeeded in bringing war to the territory of Iran, claiming, thus, publicly a role in the attack. This type of declaration is not very surprising in the Middle East. In 2015, the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, had publicly congratulated the attacks that had been sponsored in Europe.

Asheville, NC – Crossing the street in a manner deemed “illegal” by the state can and will get you beaten, shot, kidnapped, caged, and even killed. Body Camera footage was released earlier illustrating this dangerous reality. The video shows one police officer restraining a man down while another officer repeatedly punches him in the head after they confronted him for the “crime” of jaywalking. Last month,the citizens of Asheville shelled out $650,000 because of the actions of these officers and now, police are being trained to prevent similar scenarios from playing out in the future.

According to the settlement and release agreement, Asheville will pay a total of $650,000 to Rush and his attorneys. The victim, Johnnie Rush will receive $342,500, which will be paid out in periodic payments. Ferguson Chambers & Sumter, P.A. is set to receive $307,500, according to WLOS.

s Amazon works to combat its public image as a starvation-wage employer by doling out mere pennies in pay hikes and deploying an army of workers to sing the company's praises on Twitter, a video leaked on Wednesday revealed that the trillion-dollar company is continuing to work feverishly behind the scenes to crush any attempts by workers to unionize and bargain collectively for better wages and working conditions.

"We like those 'union words' which gave us a middle class. Shame on ?Amazon?."
—AFL-CIO

The 45-minute training video—which, according to Gizmodo, was sent to managers of the Amazon-owned Whole Foods last week—instructs company leaders on how to detect "early warning signs of potential organizing," which include workers "suddenly hanging out together" and using "union words" like "living wage."

Wanna take a peek at jets stationed at Belgian airbases and learn how many US nukes are stored there? Just google it! It’s all there on the maps. But Brussels now plans to sue Google for not blurring its military sites.
The Belgian Defense Ministry had already asked the tech giant to blur the sensitive data from Google Maps, but the American company apparently ignored the demand. Now the military has decided to take action.

“The Defense [Ministry] had made a request to Google to blur [Belgian military] sites. After it found out that this [request] wasn’t satisfied, it [the ministry] will sue Google,” an official from the defense ministry’s press service told Sudinfo newspaper.

The US-led coalition fighting against Isis in Syria and Iraq admitted to killing at least 1,114 civilians in air and artillery strikes in the four-year span of the war.

Inherent Resolve, the codename for the US-dominated coalition combating the jihadi group, said it had launched a total of 30,008 strikes on suspected Isis targets between August 2014 and August 2018, and that each allegation of civilian casualties has been investigated.

It is a significant number but far less than the more than 6,000 people assessed to have been killed by independent monitors.

“We continue to employ thorough and deliberate targeting and strike processes to minimise the impact of our operations on civilian populations and infrastructure,” said a press release issued by the Pentagon. “This process includes thorough review and vetting of each target package prior to a strike, and another review after that strike.”

Confusion swirls over Isis's role in Iran terror attack