Four killed, five wounded in shooting at Kansas bar

Authorities believe the suspects had been at Tequila KC Bar, a private club, earlier in the night and left before returning around 1:30 a.m. with at least one handgun and started shooting, Kansas City Police Department spokesman Thomas Tomasic told a news conference on Sunday. "We do not have any specific suspect information yet," Tomasic said.

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Wikipedia article of the day for October 7, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for October 7, 2019 is Poitevin horse.
The Poitevin is a French breed of draft horse. Named for the former province of Poitou in west-central France, now a part of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, it originated in the seventeenth century when horses of Flemish or Dutch origin, brought to the area by engineers working to drain the Poitevin Marsh, interbred with local horses. It may be of any solid coat color, and is sometimes striped dun, a color not seen in other French draft horses. Although it has the size and conformation of a draft horse, the Poitevin has not generally performed draft work. Its principal traditional use was the production of Poitevin mules, by breeding with large Baudet du Poitou donkeys; the mules were once in worldwide demand for agricultural and other work. In the early twentieth century there were some 50,000 brood mares, producing between 18,000 and 20,000 mules per year, but the Poitevin is today an endangered breed.

Violence Flares in Hong Kong as Emergency Rule Spurs Backlash

(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong suffered one of its most violent weekends since anti-China protests began in June, with demonstrators paralyzing large swaths of the financial hub after leader Carrie Lam imposed emergency rule for the first time in more than half a century to ban face masks.On a holiday weekend normally packed with tourists, the city’s already reeling economy took another hit as banks, supermarkets and rail all cut service. MTR Corp., the rail operator, halted all travel except direct lines to the airport on Saturday for the first time since 2007. Train services remained limited on Monday, a holiday, with most stations closed due to vandalism. For the second time in a week, a teenage demonstrator was shot and wounded in scuffles with police.Through periods of torrential rain Sunday, police battled with protesters who occupied streets, vandalized property and targeted businesses with links to the mainland. Some demonstrators reportedly gathered outside the People’s Liberation Army downtown barracks for the first time.“From the huge turnout today you can see people aren’t abandoning us and the movement,” said a 17-year-old protester who gave his name as Rocky, wearing all black and a mask on his face. “Hong Kong people would only be angrier and more united if she rolled out more measures under the emergency law.”The increased violence showed that emergency law did little to deter protesters fighting for greater political freedoms, including the right to choose and elect their own leaders. That leaves Lam and her backers in Beijing with a difficult choice: Either take more drastic steps that could further erode Hong Kong’s autonomy from China and prompt a backlash, or come up with a political solution that is acceptable to most demonstrators.“The government started a very bad and dangerous precedent in invoking the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to enact this anti-mask law,” said Eric Cheung, a law lecturer at the University of Hong Kong and a member of the committee that elects the city’s leader. “There is growing distrust against the government, against the police.”Hong Kong’s financial markets will be closed for the public holiday on Monday. A 10th of the city’s ATMs were vandalized, the Hong Kong Association of Banks said in a statement on Sunday, adding that the financial system had adequate liquidity for withdrawals.Almost four months of growing discontent have taken their toll on the tourism and the retail industries, driving the city’s $360 billion economy toward recession. Financial Secretary Paul Chan warned in the Global Times last month that while Hong Kong likely entered a technical recession in the third quarter, the performance of the fourth will depend on whether the city can quell the unrest.Violence Escalates With Vandalism, Vigilantism: Hong Kong UpdateTourism from China declined 42% in August as the value of retail sales fell by almost a quarter. Luxury goods such as jewelry and watches are common purchases by mainland tourists, and the value of those sales slid by almost half. Some smaller store owners have closed down: In Hong Kong’s usually bustling Causeway Bay shopping district, one in 10 stores now stand empty, according to data from real estate agency Midland IC&I Ltd.Protesters initially hit the streets in June to protest a bill that would’ve allowed extraditions to mainland China. While Lam finally withdrew the proposal in September, the protests have since expanded to include calls for an independent inquiry into police violence and greater democratic accountability in the former British colony. The protests have become almost daily events with regular violent clashes between activists and police.Shot and InjuredA 14-year-old boy was shot and injured Friday night during a scuffle between a plainclothes police officer and demonstrators who had attacked his car. Just days earlier, police shot and injured an 18-year-old man who had attacked them during the National Day protests.On Sunday, violence flared again as protesters blocked roads and set fires. Video footage showed a bloodied man laying on a road after he was dragged out of the taxi he was driving through a crowd and stomped on by a group of protesters after the vehicle hit some of them.“Public safety has been jeopardized and the public order of the whole city is being pushed to the verge of a very dangerous situation,” the police said in a statement early Monday. “Police appeal to the public to report illegal acts and join hands to maintain public order.”The latest protests followed warnings from opposition leaders that Lam’s decision to invoke a colonial-era emergency law to impose the mask ban would only further anger the government’s critics.The High Court denied an application for an interim injunction by all 24 pro-democracy lawmakers on the ban of wearing of face masks during protests, Radio Television Hong Kong reported. The court adjourned a hearing on their application for a judicial review of the government measure to later this month, it said. The application followed another court’s rejection on Friday of a temporary suspension of the law sought by pro-democracy activists.While Lam has promised to address the underlying causes of the unrest and faced critics in a town hall event last month, she has so far refused to address protesters’ demands for greater democracy. Any solution requires the approval of Beijing, which is wary of any process that could produce a leader who challenges its rule over the city.Over the weekend, protesters began targeting Chinese state-run companies including major banks. A. Lau, a 26-year-old graphic designer who has joined with other protesters in vandalizing property, said the demonstrators were attacking government offices and “organizations against us.”“We are not irrational and we are not vandalizing arbitrarily,” he said. “We are venting our anger toward the authorities as they are not responding to us.”\--With assistance from Fion Li and Aaron Mc Nicholas.To contact the reporters on this story: Stanley James in Hong Kong at sjames8@bloomberg.net;Alfred Liu in Hong Kong at aliu226@bloomberg.net;Tian Chen in Hong Kong at tchen259@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, ;Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Ian FisherFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Erratic Trump struggles to control message as impeachment threat grows

Republican defenders mostly silent, with two vivid exceptions, as at least one additional whistleblower steps forward Trump’s course of self-defense, meanwhile, appeared to be increasingly erratic. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty ImagesAs Donald Trump strived to enforce message discipline among Republicans in the face of a building threat that he will be impeached, new forces beyond the US president’s control appeared likely to accelerate the congressional impeachment inquiry further in the coming week.At least one additional whistleblower has stepped forward to describe an alleged scheme by Trump to extort Ukraine for dirt on Democratic 2020 presidential rival Joe Biden, the individual’s lawyer announced.Congress is preparing to take testimony on Tuesday from a major figure in the Ukraine scandal, Gordon Sondland, a wealthy hotelier and major Trump donor who was made US ambassador to the European Union.Similar testimony last week by former US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker led to the disclosure of a damaging series of text messages further implicating Trump in the scandal.And Trump’s would-be defenders in the Republican ranks, with the notable exception of two figures who themselves are deeply implicated in the Ukraine affair – secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani – have fallen mostly silent. No Trump defender from the White House appeared on the US Sunday morning news shows, nor did any members of the congressional Republican political leadership.Trump’s course of self-defense, meanwhile, appeared to be increasingly erratic. The president told House Republicans that his reportedly outgoing energy secretary, Rick Perry, was the secret Machiavelli behind a phone call Trump held with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, central to the scandal, Axios reported.“Not a lot of people know this but, I didn’t even want to make the call,” Trump was quoted as saying. “The only reason I made the call was because Rick asked me to.”Article 1 of the United States constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power to initiate impeachment and the Senate the sole power to try impeachments of the president. A president can be impeached if they are judged to have committed "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" – although the constitution does not specify what “high crimes and misdemeanors” are.The process starts with the House of Representatives passing articles of impeachment. A simple majority of members need to vote in favour of impeachment for it to pass to the next stage. Democrats currently control the house, with 235 representatives.The chief justice of the US supreme court then presides over the proceedings in the Senate, where the president is tried, with senators acting as the jury. For the president to be found guilty two-thirds of senators must vote to convict. Republicans currently control the Senate, with 53 of the 100 senators.Two presidents have previously been impeached, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Andrew Johnson in 1868, though neither was removed from office as a result. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before there was a formal vote to impeach him.Martin BelamA spokesperson said that Perry had urged Trump to speak with Ukraine about natural gas but not about Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, or a conspiracy theory about Ukrainian election tampering, which were the topics Trump raised on the July call.“Lesson to all of you Trump aides,” tweeted Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress, “he’s taking you all down with him so you might as well get off the boat while you can.”After a week in which his campaign seemed to dither over Trump’s constant attacks, Biden published a pugilistic op-ed in the Washington Post declaring “enough is enough”. “You won’t destroy me, and you won’t destroy my family,” the piece concluded. “And come November 2020, I intend to beat you like a drum.”On Sunday afternoon, Biden criticized Trump on Twitter.> In my experience, asking a foreign government to manufacture lies about your domestic political opponent is not “done all the time.” https://t.co/w8K8C17yUj> > — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 6, 2019News of at least one more whistleblower with direct knowledge of Trump administration interactions with Ukraine emerged Sunday. “I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistleblowers in connection to the underlying 12 August disclosure to the Intelligence Community Inspector General,” tweeted Andrew Bakaj. “No further comment at this time.”Trump spent Sunday morning tweeting outrage at Democrats and at Mitt Romney, who has been the only GOP senator to condemn Trump’s Ukraine dealings in strong, clear terms.At the weekend, Maine Republican senator Susan Collins said of Trump’s comments last week saying China should investigate the Bidens, that: “I thought the president made a big mistake by asking China to get involved in investigating a political opponent. It’s completely inappropriate.”But the efficacy of Trump’s efforts to keep Republicans onside in his defense was also visible at the weekend, with Pompeo telling reporters in Athens that it was the government’s “duty” to investigate a conservative conspiracy theory placing Ukraine instead of Russia at the heart of 2016 election tampering. That conspiracy theory has been debunked thoroughly.Another Republican senator, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, scrambled on Sunday to make amends for his admission on Friday that he had heard the state department was trying to put together a deal in which military aid for Ukraine would be tied to Zelenskiy’s cooperation in Trump’s alleged conspiracy against Biden.Johnson used an appearance on NBC News’ Meet the Press to become adamant about how Trump had personally told him there was no such linkage, and then, to the intense frustration of host Chuck Todd, Johnson peddled the Ukraine election tampering conspiracy. “What happened in 2016?” said Johnson. “Who set him up? Did things spring from Ukraine?”But Colin Powell, the former secretary of state under George W Bush, called the whistleblower a “patriot” in an appearance on CNN.“The Republican party has got to get a grip on itself,” Powell said. “Republican leaders and members of the Congress … are holding back because they’re terrified of what will happen [to] any one of them if they speak out.”Meanwhile the former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, who has mounted a primary run against Trump, accused Trump of betrayal.“This president deserves to be impeached,” Walsh said on CNN’s State of the Union. “This president betrayed his country again this week … He stood on the White House lawn and told two foreign governments to interfere in our election. Donald Trump is a traitor.”Minnesota senator and Democratic 2020 election candidate Amy Klobuchar amplified that message, comparing the Ukraine scandal to Watergate.“This is impeachable,” Klobuchar told CNN. “He’s acting like a global gangster, going to one leader after another trying to get dirt on his political opponent. I consider that a violation of our laws.”

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Astronauts replace old batteries in 1st of 5 spacewalks

Astronauts hustled through the first of five spacewalks to replace old batteries at the International Space Station on Sunday. Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan removed three old batteries and installed two new ones delivered just a week ago, getting a jump on future work. Koch and Morgan will venture back out Friday for more battery work 250 miles (400 kilometers) up.

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Violence reaches a once peaceful Hong Kong suburb

In one peaceful community previously untouched by the months of unrest that have shaken Hong Kong, it was an unexpected sight: the methodical ransacking of the local subway station over a three-hour period. Clashes raged in multiple locations throughout the former British colony on Friday night after Hong Kong's leader invoked colonial-era emergency powers to ban pro-democracy protesters wearing face masks. Police used tear gas to disperse protesters who had taken over roads, vandalised subway stations, set street fires and trashed pro-China businesses -- testing again the capacity of the city's law enforcement, who many accuse of using excessive force.

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Jim Jordan: Trump not serious in calls for China to investigate Biden

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan on Sunday furthered what may be a new GOP strategy: questioning President Donald Trump’s seriousness in asking China to investigate the Biden family. In an animated exchange on ABC with host George Stephanopoulos, Jordan — one of the president’s most vocal supporters — evaded answering “yes” or “no” to the question of whether Trump’s request for foreign powers to investigate a political rival was appropriate. “You really think he was serious about thinking that China’s going to investigate the Biden family?” the Ohio Republican said.

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Pope urges compassion in elevating 13 likeminded cardinals

Pope Francis has added 13 new cardinals to the top of the Catholic hierarchy, telling them they must show God's compassion to those who suffer to be faithful to their ministry. Francis presided over the ceremony Saturday in St. Peter's Basilica, elevating churchmen who share his pastoral concerns at a time when his pontificate is under fire from conservatives within the College of Cardinals itself. Among the 13 are 10 cardinals who are under age 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave, increasing the likelihood that a future pope might end up looking an awful lot like the current one.

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UPDATE 6-Chinese soldiers in Hong Kong warn protesters as emergency rules fail to quell unrest

Chinese soldiers issued a warning to Hong Kong protesters on Sunday who shone lasers at their barracks in the city, in the first direct interaction with mainland military forces in four months of anti-government demonstrations. The stand-off with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) came after rallies attended by tens of thousands of protesters earlier on Sunday ended in violent clashes in several locations. Protesters concealed their faces in defiance of colonial-era emergency laws invoked by the authorities on Friday, which banned face masks.

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Jewish death row inmate wins appeal days before execution after judge’s ‘regular racism and antisemitism’ revealed

For more than 15 years on death row, Randy Halprin filed challenge after challenge to his sentence. The denials began to stack up.Finally, on Friday, one of his appeals persuaded Texas’ highest court to stay his execution, which had been scheduled for 10 October.

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